The Blackbottom Group 501 c 3 is a collection of community building principles based on , education arts, culture, film and economic mobility awareness. consisting of showcasing and marketing businesses and talent through short documentary, podcasting, storytelling and connecting artful entertainment and history together. We pride ourselves on working with like minded organizations and the business community for the purpose of capacity building, consulting and grant writing experiences. The organization derived the name The Blackbottom Group (BBG) from an area of Detroit where the multi-ethnic residents resided and built a self-sufficient community that was directly connected to Historical Paradise Valley where business, nightclubs, hotels entrepreneurship flourished. Family unity and a sense of community is the narrative of Blackbottom. The area was erected by discriminatory urban renewal policies. The neighborhood in Detroit was demolished for redevelopment in the early 1960s and replaced with Lafayette Park. In the early twentieth century residents became concentrated in Blackbottom during the first wave of the Great Migration to northern industrial cities. Blackbottom was located in the lower East Side and was bounded by, I-375 Freeway east to Mt Elliott Street, South of Gratiot to the Detroit River and the Grand Trunk railroad tracks. Historically, this area was the source of the River Savoyard now known as the Dequindre Cut which was buried as a sewer in 1827. Its “bottom” and rich marsh soils are the source of the name “Black Bottom.” The Blackbottom Group initiated the process to the State of Michigan History Center that secured the Black Bottom Historical Marker recognizing Black Bottom Detroit as a legally recognized historical area.
“Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that on November 14, 2019, the Michigan Historical Commission granted The Blackbottom Group permission to erect a historical marker for Black Bottom, State Site No. 758, Detroit, Wayne County.”
Southern Blacks populated the area as well as other European ethnicities. Some well-known personalities that lived in Black Bottom were Detroit’s Mayor Coleman A. Young, U.S. Ambassador Ralph J. Bunch, Boxer Joe Louis and Members of Infamous Purple Gang. Before Interstate I-375 that destroyed the Black Bottom Detroit Community
The Purple Gang was Detroit’s most notorious organized crime gang in the 1920s and 1930s. The Purple Gang was made up of immigrants from Detroit’s lower east side. In the early 1960s, the City of Detroit conducted an Urban Renewal program to combat what it called “Slum Clearance.” The program razed the entire Black Bottom district and replaced it with the Chrysler Freeway and Lafayette Park, a mixed-income development designed as a model neighborhood combining residential townhouses, apartments and high-rises with commercial areas.
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