June 24, 2018 - 4:47:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
James Riley Sr., founder of the oldest black-owned funeral home, and perhaps the oldest black-owned business in Lansing, died June 24. He was 93.
James Russell Riley Sr. was born in Memphis, Tenn., on Sept. 22, 1922. He came to Michigan at 17, following graduation from high school, and got a job at the Ford plant in River Rouge.
He left to join the military when the U.S. entered World War II. Riley was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, where Deresa, his future bride, taught sewing at a small school. The couple met at a dance. They moved back to Detroit together.
June 24, 2018 - 4:44:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History, Public Safety
Since it launched in Michigan in 2001, 295 of 304 children involved in AMBER Alerts have been recovered alive. The Michigan Association of Broadcasters spends between $35,000 and $40,000 a year to fund the program, President and CEO Karole White said.
For the full article, see Elisha Anderson, "On anniversary of Michigan's 1st Amber Alert, mother reflects on daughter it saved", Detroit Free Press, June 24, 2011.
June 24, 2018 - 4:33:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
Fresh Air Camp: On June 24, 1906, the Free Press runs a box asking readers to "wrap up a nickel in a piece of paper and send it to the Free Press to be used to send a poor crippled girl and a poor crippled boy to the country for a month's vacation." Nickels arrive en masse and eight children go to camp.
June 24, 2018 - 4:27:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
Bernard Stroh ( (August 20, 1822-June 24, 1882) was born in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany and learned the beer brewing trade from his father. Around the time of the German Revolution, he left his homeland in 1848, and joined a group of German settlers in Brazil for three years before deciding to try his luck in America Instead.
June 24, 2018 - 4:20:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
On June 24, 1873, the Elk Rapids Iron Co. produced its first blast of iron. Elk Rapids was once one of the nation's greatest producers of iron. Its furnace stood 47 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter. The logging firm of Dexter and Noble selected Elk Rapids for its furnace because of vast stands of hardwood timber that sat ready for the taking. The company turned the hardwood into charcoal used to fire the furnace. The company was the town's major employer until around World War I when the hardwood forests had been depleted.
Source: Michigan Every Day
June 23, 2018 - 4:58:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
Flood damage to Isabella County public and private property is near $90 million, according to preliminary assessments announced Wednesday, June 28.
The damage to homes and roads appears to make Isabella the hardest-hit among four that have declared states of emergency in the wake of heavy rains and flooding that started June 23.
In Midland County, the second hardest-hit, roads and bridges sustained about $13 million in damage, county officials said.
June 23, 2018 - 4:50:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
50th Anniversary of MLK Freedom Walk, Detroit, MI, June 22, 2013 - - A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author
June 23, 2018 - 4:34:00 am (America/Detroit)
Blog: Red Tape
Categories: History
In the spring of 1963, Detroiters looked for a way to commemorate the anniversary of racial violence that tore through their city twenty years earlier that left 34 people dead and hundreds injured. The Detroit Council for Human Rights called for a "Walk to Freedom," because many of "the same basic, underlying causes" of the 1943 disturbance were "still present."