Paradise Valley

As Detroit’s manufacturing base boomed during two world wars from 1917-18 and 1941-45, large numbers of African Americans moved there to work in the factories, and the city’s African American population increased from 5,000 in 1910 to 300,000 by 1950. Throughout this period, segregationist policies restricted where blacks could live, own businesses, and spend their free time. During the 1930s, a commercial center emerged in the area roughly bounded by Adams, Brush, Alexandrine, and Hastings, known as Paradise Valley, with black-owned medical offices and retail shops as well as swank restaurants and hotels. Some nightclubs, called black and tans, were frequented by blacks and whites alike, and African Americans owned and operated all of the businesses in the valley. From the 1930s into the 1950s, Paradise Valley bustled around the clock as Detroit’s African American business and entertainment district. Nightspots like 606 Horseshoe Lounge, Club Plantation, and Club 666 featured entertainers such as Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, the Ink Spots, and Sarah Vaughan. Blacks who performed elsewhere in Michigan were excluded from white hotels and stayed in the valley. Beginning in the 1940s, urban renewal projects, the construction of freeways, and new development devastated African American neighborhoods, including Paradise Valley, and the valley’s last three structures along St. Antoine Street were demolished in 2001.

Detroit, Michigan · United States