The summer of 1969 is famous as a flashpoint year in the US:  Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the full size of the hippie movement became clear at Woodstock, and the Stonewall riots stood as an example of the deep divide between progressives and the establishment.  It was a time of social upheaval in Ann Arbor as well: there were marches, protests, civil actions, and an attempt to issue a traffic ticket to a motorcyclist on South University led to several days and nights of pro

AADL celebrates fifty years of Huron High School with a photographic exhibit on the 2nd floor of the Downtown Library. Photographs include construction of the new building at 2727 Fuller Rd and student activities leading up to and including opening day in September 1969 and continuing through the 1969-1970 academic year. 

In the first few years following the Stonewall Uprising in New York, Michigan experienced a surge in gay liberation activism, what today might fall under the umbrella of the LGBT movement.  Historian Tim Retzloff explores the multiple queer organizations that sprang up in Metro Detroit and elsewhere in the early 1970s and key events from that time that sent political and social shockwaves through the state still felt today.

Join the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library for Phase VI of our Living Oral History Project. Watch a clip reel of interviews with Walter Blackwell, Gerald Edwards, Henrietta Edwards, Hortense Howard, and Audrey Monagan, followed by a meet and greet and refreshments.

Sacred Roots food sovereignty project is reclaiming ancestral knowledge and empowering community to produce food that nourishes the whole person—body, mind, and spirit. By reconnecting people to their traditional foods and growing practices, community members have an opportunity to cultivate a deeper sense of identity, belonging, and wellness. Come learn from presenter Shiloh Maples how the Detroit indigenous community is creating space and opportunities for land-based wellness in the urban landscape.

In 2019, the Ann Arbor Farmers Market celebrates its centennial.  It was first established as a “curb market” where farmers would back their wagons or trucks up to the sidewalks around courthouse square to sell their wares.  Farmers from across the county drove vegetables, fruits, flowers, eggs, meats, dairy products, and baked goods into the city early Saturday morning to get a spot and a chance to sell to eager Ann Arborites.  After a donation of land in Kerrytown, the c

Join us for the premiere of Exiled to Motown, a traveling historical exhibit that tells the story of Japanese Americans in metro Detroit. Japanese Americans have been a part of Michigan's vibrant history for over a hundred years, but their first major immigration to the Midwest came as a result of World War II. After being forcibly removed from the Pacific coast and imprisoned in the inland West, some Japanese Americans sought to begin life anew in cities far from home, like Detroit. There was a dark side to these Rustbelt refuges, however: The U.S.

Clothesline Historian and Hobbyist Anne Lawrence, via her fun-filled presentation and display of laundry nostalgia, will revive memories of simpler times when laundry was always hung to dry outdoors – when folks went “online” without the internet! Here will be washday history, sociological issues of ethnic stereotypes in the laundry industry, feminism, and the demise of the clothesline when automatic dryers emerged in the marketplace. We’ll learn why “solar drying” is once again popular, especially in today’s eco-conscious world.

Join us as archivist and President Gerald R. Ford specialist Bill McNitt discusses Ford and his legacy.