Black Scroll Network History & Tours

09/13/2024

Pat joined Solid Hit Bound Records, owned by another former Golden World musician - guitarist Don Davis and LeBaron Taylor. Don Davis, who, before Pat Lewis enrolled, also graduated from Central High School, would one day own United Sound Systems Studios, one of the most iconic music studios in Detroit’s History.

And LeBaron Taylor would one day become a co-founder of Revilot Records, which would record the first hit record of a dude named George Clinton.

While at Solid Hit Bound, Pat Lewis recorded “Look At What I Almost Missed,” “Warning,” “No One To Love,” “No Baby No,” & “The Loser.”

In 1967, the Detroit’s Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, asked Pat Lewis to become one of her background singers on the road. She remained with Aretha off and on for a few years traveling and recording in the studio.

She also continued to perform all around town, as well as sing background and arrange music with her sister, Diane and another Detroit singer, Rose Williams.

They were known as, “the Group.”

In 1969, while recording at United Sound Systems Studios in Detroit, Stax Records artist Isaac Hayes needed background singers, and Don Davis, then-producer for Stax and United Sound, hired “the group” to arrange and record background for Hayes’ album, “Hot Buttered Soul.”

While working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes, Hot, Buttered & Soul recorded background vocals for many of the Stax artists. They also remained Isaac Hayes’s opening act and studio group from 1969-1982. They went on world tours and appeared on TV shows nationally and abroad.

In 1971, the group sang background on Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain,” album.

Pat continued to arrange all background vocals for the group, but was not given credit until decades after.

Hot, Buttered & Soul, when not with Isaac Hayes, recorded with Parliament-Funkadelic, traveled with Aretha Franklin and even with Rick Dees (“Disco Duck.”).

In 1972, Hot, Buttered & Soul moved to Memphis - where Stax Records was headquartered. RIP TO A DETROIT LEGEND!

09/13/2024

Patsy Lewis was born on October 23, 1947 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

In 1951 her family moved here to Detroit, where she attended Central High School.

Detroit is where she would become a legendary singer.

Patsy performed in glee clubs, talent shows and with the school band, throughout her school years and like most singers, sang in the church choir.

In the early 60s, Pat along with her sister Dianne Lewis, formed a group called The Adorables, along with 2 other sisters - Betty and Jackie Winston. They signed with Golden World Records, owned by numbers man and music executive Ed Wingate. Joanne Bratton, business partner and co-founder of Golden World, managed The Adorables.

The Adorables recorded, “Deep Freeze,” “Daddy Please,” “Ooh Boy,” “Be” and “Schools All Over,” at Golden World, and recorded “Romeo and Juliet” with the blue-eyed soul/doo-wop group - The Reflections.

Patsy dropped the “sy”, and became a solo artist - Pat Lewis.

Her 1st solo recording at Golden World was “Can’t Shake It Loose.”

The Andantes, the main backing group for Motown Records, were frequently hired by Golden World. One day a member of the Andantes couldn’t make the session, so Pat stood in for her.

She was such a great singer that Motown Records brought her in to do backup for a number of artists.

She also sang backup on Detroit legend Wilson’s “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.”

In 1966, Golden World was sold to Motown. Motown’s studio on W. Grand Blvd - Hitsville, USA - was known as “Studio A.”

The Golden World Studio, then located on W. Davison between Wildemere and Dexter, roughly where the parking lot in front of present-day Blazin’ Ho**ah, became “Studio B.”

Most of the Golden World stable of singers and musicians didn’t have exclusive contracts with the label, and as a result, most were not picked up by Motown with the sale.

09/12/2024

99 Years Ago - on September 9, 1925 - a deadly event happened on the corner of Garland and Charlevoix in the eastside of Detroit.

Dr. Ossian and Gladys Sweet along with family and friends will defend their home from a white mob.

And it will be a major civil rights battle in Detroit, and in America.

But before Dr. Sweet’s battle, other families confronted this same question.

One of those families was Aldine & Fleta Mathis.

In March 1923, a couple who moved to Detroit from Georgia - Aldine Mathis and Fleta Mae McCrary got married here in Detroit. They moved into the Old Westside neighborhood into the lower flat at 5913 Northfield with their friends another Black couple - the Burtons.

They were immediately threatened by white so-called neighbors, and the K*K.

In April, mobs of white residents gathered outside of their home.

Aldine and his friend Mr. Burton, had to stand on the porch with their rifles to get the crowd to move away.

On April 13, bricks were thrown through the window.

With threats hurling from the white mob, Fleta Mathis grabbed the pistol from the bedside table and fired 2 shots out the window.
No one was hit, but the crowd ran away.

Who said Black women in Detroit ain’t bout that life.

She was arrested.

Her attorneys were W. Hayes McKinney & Cecil Rowlette.

The judge eventually ruled that she fired in defense of her home, and that her act was legal.

The Mathises were not forced out.
They would live there for a decade.

They lived in a number of other places in and around Detroit, including Ecorse, MI, and the Conant Gardens, neighborhood.

It would be months later, when Dr. Ossian Sweet and his brothers and friends would take a page from the Mathises and defend themselves and their home from a white mob.

09/12/2024

99 Years Ago - on September 9, 1925 - a deadly event happened on the corner of Garland and Charlevoix in the eastside of Detroit.

In fact, that whole year - 1925 - was a cataclysmal year in the city of Detroit.

It was the height of the post-WWI/pre-Depression auto industry boom in Detroit and thousands of immigrants were coming from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Central America to Detroit because of the job opportunities.

Many Americans - especially from the South - were also coming to Detroit.

And thousands of those Southerners were African Americans.

They were coming to Detroit for the job opportunities.
But what were they leaving?

They were leaving the hyper-violent version of Jim Crow that was in effect in the South.

Everything was segregated - hospitals, schools, lobbies, bathrooms, water fountains, buses, trains, restaurants, theaters, hotels and even cemeteries.

Most Black people were locked into low-paying work or even into perpetual debt servitude lives such as, sharecropping or tenant farming, where the Black workers would continually remain in debt to the white landowner and be forced to work season after season in a futile attempt to "get right" with the landowner.

Black people were blocked from registering to vote by poll taxes, literacy tests and outright terrorism.

The Ku Klux Klan, police officers, judges and just plain white citizens would punish, assault, imprison, and even kill Black people.

There was at least one lynching almost every day in the South between 1880-1930.

So these Black people were coming for job opportunities.
But they were also fleeing terrorism.

When they came to Detroit, they were not forced into sharecropping or tenant farming.

They could register to vote in Detroit. They could vote.
They could even run for office.

There was not a lynching everyday in a northern state.
There were some lynchings in the North.
Just nowhere near as often as in the South.

And many Black people could make a living wage, or at least a decent wage working in the auto factories.

Much more than they ever could've made as a tenant farmer or sharecropper or washer woman, or field laborer in Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia, which is where most of the African Americans in Detroit had come from.

But what they found in Detroit was Northern Jim Crow.

They found job discrimination.

Certain businesses did not hire Black people at all.
Most did not hire African Americans to high positions.
Many of the auto factories did not promote African Americans to supervisors or foremen.
Most of the factories that did promote Black workers as foremen, only allowed them to be foremen over Black workers. At the same time, white supervisors could be foremen over workers of any race.

Many of the factories preferably hired white southerners as foremen over the African American workers.

And Black workers were placed in jobs at the factory as janitors, grinding and sanding operations.

And the foundries.
The foundry was the most dirty, difficult and dangerous job at the factory.

Black people faced segregation in certain (but not all) public places. Many of the upscale hotels, department stores, and restaurants would not service African American guests.

The Downtown YMCA - the largest YMCA in the nation - would not allow African Americans to visit or use the facility.

The same for the YWCA for African American women.

Black people had to establish their own YMCA and YWCA - the St. Antoine YMCA, and the Lucy Thurman YWCA.

In fact, Black people, out of necessity, created their own hotels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, stores, and other businesses that would cater to their needs.

The Black business district in Detroit that began to take shape in the 1920s and 30s, was known as Paradise Valley.

Black migrants from the South also faced school inequality.
Schools that were predominantly Black received less resources, less teachers, less classes, less books, and more disciplinary actions than schools that were predominantly white.

Even though the same school board was in charge of both sets of schools.

Police brutality was an epidemic in the Black community. Not only were Black suspects and criminals treated with horrific abuse, but unarmed and innocent Black people were routinely harassed and assaulted by the nearly all-white Detroit police force.

Big Ben Turpin, the most well-known Black police officer, was hired not to enforce the law evenly with regard to white or African American citizens. His job was to mostly ignore the white community, and strike fear in the Black community for his brutal methods and harassment of African Americans.

And he was notorious for living up to that mission.

But the #1 aspect of Detroit's Jim Crow system, was housing discrimination.

African Americans were blocked from buying, renting, and leasing homes in white neighborhoods. Even in predominantly Black neighborhoods, white landowners forced African Americans into paying high rent or land contracts, and crammed numerous families into one house.

The lower eastside neighborhood known as Black Bottom, became the area with the highest concentration of African American residents.

And it was severely overcrowded.

Because of the overcrowding in the lower eastside neighborhood of Black Bottom (present day Lafayette Park, Elmwood Park, Bricktown and Greektown), some African Americans began moving into an area on the Westside.

It became known as the Old Westside.

The Old Westside was the area in Detroit bordered by:
Grand River on the East, Buchanan on the South, Tireman on the North, and Epworth at the West, had acquired a small, but significant Black population by the 1920s, especially with the establishment of 4 important Black churches in the neighborhood in the preceding years:

Hartford Ave. Baptist Church - the 1st Black church on the Westside of Detroit, on Hartford and Milford. Originally named, the International, In*******al, Interdenominational, Institutional Baptist Church (1917).

St. Stephen's AME - still located at John E. Hunter and Cobb. (1918)

St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church on 28th and Milford. The church was closed by the archdiocese in 2021. (1919)

Tabernacle Baptist Church on Woodrow & Cobb formed due to a split at Hartford when Rev. Charles Hill was installed as the new pastor. (1920)

In March 1923, a couple who moved to Detroit from Georgia - Aldine Mathis and Fleta Mae McCrary got married here in Detroit. They moved into the Old Westside neighborhood into the lower flat at 5913 Northfield with their friends another Black couple - the Burtons.

They were immediately threatened by white so-called neighbors, and the K*K.

In April, mobs of white residents gathered outside of their home.

Aldine and his friend Mr. Burton, had to stand on the porch with their rifles to get the crowd to move away.

On April 13, bricks were thrown through the window.
With threats hurling from the white mob, Fleta Mathis grabbed the pistol from the bedside table and fired 2 shots out the window.
No one was hit, but the crowd ran away.

She was arrested.

Her attorneys were W. Hayes McKinney & Cecil Rowlette.

The judge eventually ruled that she fired in defense of her home, and that her act was legal.

The Mathises were not forced out.
They would live there for a decade.

They lived in a number of other places in and around Detroit, including Ecorse, MI, and the Conant Gardens neighborhood.

It would be months later, when Dr. Ossian Sweet and his brothers and friends would take a page from the Mathises and defend themselves and their home from a white mob.

*Pictured here:

1.) Map of the Old Westside neighborhood
2.) 5913 Northfield - the home of the Aldine & Fleta Mathis before it was demolished.
3.) The Binder St. later home of the Mathises in the Black middle class neighborhood of Conant Gardens.

09/10/2024

Patsy Lewis was born on October 23, 1947 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

In 1951 her family moved to Detroit, Michigan in where she attended Central High School, where she would become a legendary singer. Patsy performed in glee clubs, talent shows and with the school band, throughout her school years and like most singers, sang in the church choir.

In the early sixties, Pat along with her sister Diane Lewis, formed a group called The Adorables, along with two other sisters Betty and Jackie Winston. They signed with Golden World, owned by numbers man and music executive Ed Wingate. Joanne Bratton, business partner and co-founder of Golden World Records, managed The Adorables.

The Adorables recorded, “Deep Freeze,” “Daddy Please,” “Ooh Boy,” “Be” and “Schools All Over," at Golden World, and recorded “Romeo and Juliet” with the blue-eyed soul/doo-wop group - The Reflections.

Patsy dropped the “sy”, and became a solo artist - Pat Lewis.

Her 1st solo recording at Golden World was “Can’t Shake It Loose.”

The Andantes, the main backing group for Motown Records, were frequently hired by Golden World. One day a member of the band couldn't make the session, so Pat stood in for her.

She was such a great singer that Motown Records brought her in to do backup for a number of artists.

She also sang backup on Detroit legend Jackie Wilson's "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher."

In 1966, Golden World was sold to Motown. Motown's studio on W. Grand Blvd- Hitsville USA - was known as "Studio A."

The Golden World Studio, then located on W. Davison between Wildemere and Dexter, roughly where the parking lot in front of Blazin' Ho**ah, became "Studio B."

Most of the Golden World stable of singers and musicians didn't have exclusive contracts with the label, and as a result, most were not picked up by Motown with the sale.

Pat joined Solid Hit Bound Records, owned by another former Golden World musician - guitarist Don Davis and LeBaron Taylor. Don Davis, who, before Pat Lewis enrolled, also graduated from Central High School, would one day own United Sound Systems Studios, one of the most iconic music studios in Detroit's History.

And LeBaron Taylor would one day become a co-founder of Revilot Records, which would record the first hit record of a dude named George Clinton.

While at Solid Hit Bound, Pat Lewis recorded “Look At What I Almost Missed,” “Warning,” “No One To Love,” “No Baby No,” & "The Loser.”

In 1967, Aretha Franklin asked her to become one of her background singers on the road. She remained with Aretha off and on for a few years traveling and recording in the studio.

She also continued to perform all around town, as well as sing background and arrange music with her sister, Diane and another Detroit singer, Rose Williams.

They were known as, "the Group."

In 1969, while recording at United Sound Systems Studios in Detroit, Stax Records artist Isaac Hayes needed background singers, and Don Davis, then-producer for Stax and United Sound, hired "the group" to arrange and record background for Hayes' album, "Hot Buttered Soul."

While working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes, Hot, Buttered & Soul recorded background vocals for many of the Stax artists. They also remained Isaac Hayes's opening act and studio group from 1969-1982. They went on world tours and appeared on TV shows nationally and abroad.

In 1971, the group sang background on George Clinton's "Maggot Brain," album.

Pat continued to arrange all background vocals for the group, but was not given credit until decades after.

Hot, Buttered & Soul, when not with Isaac Hayes, recorded with Parliament-Funkadelic, traveled with Aretha Franklin and even with Rick Dees (“Disco Duck.”).

In 1972, Hot, Buttered & Soul moved to Memphis - where Stax Records was headquartered.

In 1974 they added a 4th group member, Barbara McCoy.

Pat did commercials, backup singing, solo performing, and performed with the group for years. By 1977, Pat and Diane moved back to Detroit, but still worked with Isaac Hayes and other major acts.

While back in Detroit, Pat formed a band called “Thrust," performing mostly in local venues.

In 1985, she reunited with her long time friend and producer, George Clinton, arranging and singing for such artist as Funkadelic, Prince, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bootsy Collins, Tracy Ullman, Paul Simon, and the theme song for the WWF wrestler, The Junkyard Dog.

In 1986, Pat was contacted by Detroiter and fellow former Golden World and Motown singer, Edwin Starr, who was living in England. He requested her to perform her hit singles from the 60s for the RicTic Review.

The performers included Al Kent, J.J. Barnes, Lou Ragland and Edwin Starr. This opened up a whole new world, the world of Northern Soul.

Northern Soul is a musical movement that began in the UK in the 1970s. The movement is largely a major fan and support movement for 1960s and 70s African American soul singers and groups who were highly talented, but not as well known as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, or the Motown acts like Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye.

Pat became a staple in the Northern Soul scene in the 80s. While in England, she she met Ian Levine, a friend of Kim Weston, who wanted to come over to Detroit and record many of the Motown artists and their old hits, plus some original songs that he and some of the artists had written. Ian hired Pat as the coordinator, background vocal arranger, lead and background singer for the new record company - Motorcity Records.

In 1999, Levine brought Pat Lewis in to do a Gospel album. Pat was given 3 weeks to record 76 songs - 60 gospel songs, 16 Christian Contemporary songs,

Of course she successfully recorded all of the songs.

That same year, Hot, Buttered & Soul reunited in Memphis, and performed at the New Daisy Theater, along with the “Masqueraders.”

In 2002, Pat’s health began to fail. She acquired a rare blood disorder which resulted in both knees being replaced (2003) and the removal of her spleen (2004).

In 2005, Pat received a call from T.J. Lubinski to sing backup for The Four Tops, Brenda Holloway, Kim Weston and Francis Nero for the Motown - The Old Days PBS Special.

As the Industry learned that Pat was back, the phone started to ring.

In December 2005, The Adorables, were asked to perform a Northern Soul Weekender in Northampton, England. The group went to England.

In 2006, Hitsville Legends was founded, an organization involving legendary artists from Detroit. Pat was a member. She co-produced and arranged the voices on an album called “Motown Smooth Jazz”. Another album released by the Hitsville Legends is a compilation album featuring the legendary artists. One such legendary Motown group, featured is “The Original Vandellas” (Annette Helton and Rosalind Holmes), long time friends of Patsy Lewis.

Annette and Rosalind asked Pat if she would like to be their lead singer.

The group became “The Original Vandellas featuring Pat Lewis".

On September 2, 2024, Patsy Lewis passed away.

RIP to a Detroit legend.

09/06/2024

September is Black Reading Month!

I’m reading “Funk: The Music, The People, & The Rhythm of the One,” by historian Rickey Vincent.

It is one of the best historical pieces on one of the most significant music genres in history - Funk.

And Detroit is central to Funk Music.

09/06/2024

Hydrox Cookies were originally created and sold in 1908 by the Sunshine Biscuit company founded by Jacob & Joseph Loose.

The Loose brothers were founders of what became National Biscuit Co., but were forced out when the company was taken over by their former employee - Adolphus Greene.

National Biscuit Company is known today as Nabisco Cookies.

To return as major players in the baking industry, the brothers invented the chocolate and vanilla crème sandwich cookie - Hydrox, as part of their plan to unseat Greene and Nabisco from the throne of the baking business.

In 1912, the Loose brothers’ nemesis - Adolphus Greene had his company - Nabisco - copy their cookie. He also made his copycat cookie sweeter, and the cookie more crunchy.

You know it as “OREO.”

Oreo would outsell Hydrox, largely due to its higher sugar content.

And by the 1920s, many people began to believe that Oreo was the original and Hydrox was the imitation.

Today, Hydrox is still being produced with no artificial ingredients and is certified as non-GMO - albeit on a much smaller scale than Oreo.

Oreo is and has been for decades, the #1 cookie brand sold in the world.

And even though most folks don’t know, it is actually the imitation cookie.

09/05/2024

09/03/2024

A Democratic Presidential Candidate cannot win without the Black vote.

But she’ll also needs MORE than the Black vote to win.

In contrast, the Republican Presidential Candidate does not need the Black vote to win.

He needs Black people NOT TO VOTE.

09/03/2024

A lotta y’all know that he died on September 3rd.
But this historian believes y’all need to know more.

He was born in a family as 1 of 10 children on June 8, 1902 in Sumter, Alabama.

On December 22, 1937 he married Idessa Fuller.

His family came to Detroit after WWII.

And by 1950, he was the pastor at Macedonia Church of God in Christ - a storefront church on Canfield and Hastings.

Elder Dennis Edwards Sr. was the father of one son - Dennis Edwards Jr., who sang in his father’s church choir, and then joined the Mighty Clouds of Joy gospel group.

Dennis Jr. started singing jazz, blues and soul.

Elder Dennis Edwards passed away on September 3rd, 1965.

Dennis Jr. then joined the Contours at Motown and in June of 1968, when David Ruffin was fired from the Temptations, Dennis Edwards Jr. became the new lead singer.

This was less than a year from his father’s death.

In 1972, the Temptations would record a song that was originally recorded and performed by the Undisputed Truth - “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.”

Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

The opening line sung by Dennis Edwards Jr. is,

“It was the 3rd of September.
That day I’ll always remember.
Cuz that was the day…
That my daddy died.”

RIP to Elder Dennis Edwards Sr. & Dennis Edwards Jr.

08/30/2024

Big shout out to my newest top fans! 💎

Rosita A Graham

Drop a comment to welcome them to our community,

08/28/2024

61 Years Ago Today - August 28, 1963 - The March on Washington took place! This event changed the Civil Rights Movement and changed the country.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 1963 had at least 250,000 people.

Prior to the March on Washington, throughout 1963, King criss-crossed the country raising money and interest in the March on Washington. he gave mini-“dream” speeches all over.

Neither Detroit nor DC was the first.

A major thrust by the groups organizing the march - the SCLC, the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, the Urban League, and chief organizers A.Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin takes place in LA in 1963, where the NAACP, SCLC and the National Urban League raised thousands of dollars.

The Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), a civil rights group based in Washington, DC, with many Howard University students as members, planned to block streets, and block entrances to the Capitol Building and block the landing strips at the airport.

Both CORE and SNCC planned to have their speakers issue harsh rebukes against President John F. Kennedy for not being more strong on civil rights despite the fact that Black voters’ support in 1960 got him elected.

As the date for the march got closer, the Kennedy Administration became worried that the March would be a major display of civil disobedience (NAG’s plan) and an attack on Kennedy (SNCC & CORE’s plan). In early June, the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership is formed by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation & the Big Six (Martin Luther King Jr-SCLC, Roy Wilkins-NAACP, A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer-CORE, Whitney Young-National Urban League, & John Lewis-SNCC). The money donated by the foundations is an attempt to better coordinate the efforts of the civil rights groups as well as quell any actions that may be damaging to Kennedy in what was considered “responsible agitation.”

08/28/2024

Emmett Till was born in July of 1941 and was murdered - lynched - in August 1955. He was murdered by 2 white men - Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, for allegedly “whistling” at Roy Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant, and calling her “baby” at their grocery store.

In the trial, Carolyn Bryant testified that not only had Emmett Till whistled at her and called her “baby,” but that he touched her hand, and put his hands on her waist and told her about his being with white women.

Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam admitted at the trial that they abducted Till from his uncle Mose Wright’s home, but that they had released him.

In reality, at least 4 Black witnesses, 3 of whom worked for Bryant and Milam, saw Emmett Till being brought to the Milam barn, where Emmett Till was beaten and tortured.

J.W. Washington, a Black man who worked for Milam, was one of the people that helped Bryant and Milam find Emmett Till.

Willie Reed, an 18-year old Black man, saw Bryant, Milam, Washington and Emmett Till on a truck headed to Milam’s barn.

Levi Collins and Henry Rollins, 2 Black employees of Milam, had not only seen Emmett Till being brought on the property, but also came to the barn when they heard his screams, and witnessed the torture.

One of those Black witnesses, J.W. Washington, who helped the white men find Emmett Till, lied and said he saw nothing.

Willie Reed, saw the truck bring Emmett Till to the property, saw the blood on the truck, and Emmett’s boot, and heard the screams from the barn. He also said that he was there with 2 other witnesses who could confirm his testimony.

Those other 2 witnesses, Levi Collins and Henry Rollins, were arrested by Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider, and placed in jail so that they could not testify in the murder trial and substantiate the claims that Emmett Till was beaten and tortured in the Milam barn.

Because they were in jail miles away, the prosecutor was never able to find them and put them on the stand.

A month after Emmett’s abduction and lynching, an all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty.

08/28/2024

105 Years Ago Today - On August 27, 1919 - Milton Henry was born in Philadelphia, PA.

Milton Henry would join the military during WWII, and along with Detroiters Harry T. Stewart, Alexander Jefferson, and Coleman A. Young, would become one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen.

He attended the HBCU Lincoln University of PA
and then Yale Law School.

After obtaining his law degree, he, his wife and daughter, moved to City of Pontiac, Michigan. He was elected to the Pontiac City Commission, while practicing civil rights litigation.

Milton Henry, and his younger brother, Richard Henry formed civil rights groups in Pontiac, and then joined Central Congregational Church, a church that was led by Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., and strongly focused on grassroots activism.

The church eventually became the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church.

Milton & Richard Henry, along with Rev. Cleage, and James & Grace Lee Boggs, would found the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL) - a radical grassroots civil rights organization based in Detroit - in 1962.

The Henry brothers, along with the Boggses and Rev. Cleage, would become instrumental in the establishment of the Freedom Now Party - a radical Black-led political party in 1963.

Milton became good friends with Malcolm X and recorded 3 of Malcolm’s speeches in Detroit - “Message to the Grassroots” (1963); ”The Ballot or the Bullet” (1964); and, “The Last Message” (1965), delivered one week before Malcolm’s assassination.

In 1967, Milton & Richard Henry founded the Malcolm X Society. A year later, the group organized a conference that formed the Provisional Government - Republic of New Afrika.

The Republic of New Afrika’s major goal was establishing a geographical Black Nation in the areas of the U.S. South with the highest Black populations. And a political and ideological Black Nation for Black people - New Afrikans - wherever we are.

His brother, Richard was then known as Imari Obadele, and Milton Henry was known as Brother Gaidi Obadele.
He later left the RNA, and became a pastor in Southfield, MI. He died in 2006 at the age of 87.