DETROIT – Tucked into Detroit’s Northwest Goldberg neighborhood, the Hush House is where Black history was made — and where it’s still being preserved.
“There’s just a lot of history here,” said archivist Kamila Shakur. “It has been a space that’s facilitated history and legacy and education for a long time.”
Educator and activist Charles Simmons grew up in the house on Wabash before turning it into a community museum.
Now, Shakur is digging deeper into that legacy through the Preserving Black Legacy Fellowship — a yearlong program by the Black Bottom Archives that trains Black Detroiters to collect and share neighborhood stories.
“If we are not telling our stories, who will?” said Lex Draper Garcia Bey with the Black Bottom Archives. “There is an African proverb that says, ‘Until you talk to the lion, the hunter is the hero.’”
This weekend, Shakur and the other fellows will present their research at the Black Bottom Black Legacy Festival at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Organizers said they hope attendees come ready to learn — and to connect.
“I hope they walk away inspired to start family archives, to be curious about their family story. I hope they learn something new about Detroit. I hope they meet a new friend. I hope they have a good time,” Garcia Bey said.
The Hush House has been closed since 2021, but Shakur is also working to reopen the museum — saying it can teach others how change starts at home, in their own neighborhoods.
“I think that is going to give them a better perspective of what is possible, and that revolution is not just something that you dream about — it’s something that people work at every day in a lot of different ways,” Shakur said.
Tickets for the festival are free.