Written by Tanya Terry
86-year-old Norman Bryant, founder of the Greater Flint African American Sports Hall of Fame, recently talked to the Courier about the importance of knowing the history of the St. John Street Neighborhood for all Flint area residents.
Bryant pointed out at one time St. John was a thriving community.
“We had Black businesses over there,” he added. “I remember the grocery store, right there on the corner of Vermont and St. John: Elder’s Grocery Store. Right next door to Elder’s Grocery Store, on Rhode Island, was James Wallpaper and Paint Company. That was my wife’s uncle’s paint and wallpaper shop.”
The Jarrett family was an entrepreneurial family. They had an ice house and a nut house on Easy Street, between Michigan Avenue and St. John. They also had a confectionary and grocery store. An ice house was a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Peanuts and other types of nuts were sold at the nut house.
“Now they want to pump a whole bunch of money in the area, but why didn’t they pump money into it when people had some real nice businesses back in?” asked Bryant. “They didn’t do it back then.”
Although most residents have very fond memories of the community, Bryant talked about how it wasn’t perfect.
“You had a lot of prostitution on Michigan Avenue,” said Bryant. “You had white engineers working in the Buick factory during the week, and on the weekend, they would frequent the north end for prostitutes and pimps.”
On the other hand, Bryant said there were several churches in the area.
“We had strong churches. We had Shiloh Church. We had the St. John Street Center over there. We had a lot of Black businesses there. Actually, it was like a community. Everybody knew everybody. One of the things is, Flint was one of the most segregated cities in the north at one time.”
Bryant recalls not being able to meet in certain buildings. He remembers the main place Blacks could meet being the church.
He talked about how Flint was segregated by neighborhood patterns.
Bryant keeps a Flint Journal newspaper from 1953. In the real estate section, where people look when interested in buying homes, it referred to areas where Blacks could live as “colored” areas.
“You could only buy in certain areas. Therefore, your schools weren’t integrated. Most of the schools that had Blacks in them were Fairview School, on St. John Street Drive and Roosevelt School, on St. John Street Drive. Across Industrial, it was Parkland, and on the south, it was Clark School. There were close to 57 schools in the city of Flint. You only had about four elementary schools where Blacks could go to at that time.”
Bryant talked to the Courier about why Flint was so great.
“Back in World War II, General Motors lost a lot of manpower. So, they brought women in, and they brought Blacks up from the South. The greatest thing that could happen to Blacks in Flint was-they had a UAW Union. Floyd McCree was the first Black city councilman in Flint, and he was also one of the first Black mayors in a major city in the United States. Floyd McCree was a shop committeeman in the plant. So, he knew how to bargain. He knew how to negotiate and could hold a meeting. He brought that experience from UAW downtown with him.”
Bryant said people often talk about the bombing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“Well, see they bombed Flint, and the name of the bomb is I-475! They took I-75 and cleaned all St. John and Michigan Avenue out through the expressway. They did it all through the country. But see this is typical of whites trying to keep Black folks down. Flint has a lot of Black history in it. Blacks were really strong in Flint. These are some of the things people should know about in Flint.”
