Community Experts
The Story Lab depends on community experts with a deep grounding in local history and culture in developing its educational programs and other projects. The accomplished historians, activists, and leaders listed here have offered especially notable and deeply appreciated contributions to the lab team’s understanding of important river narratives and to our joint efforts to make them more broadly known.
Anna Clark is a ProPublica journalist who lives in Detroit. She is the editor of A Detroit Anthology, a 2015 Michigan Notable Book, and author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Rachel Cars on Environment Book Award. Clark’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Elle, The New Republic, Politico, Columbia Journalism Review, and other publications.
Paul Cypher is an interpreter for Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Metroparks. He has guided a variety of science and history tours on the Detroit River with Summer Discovery Cruises, including “Warfare on the Waterfront,” on the Johnson’s Island Conspiracy during the Civil War, and “Standards of the Straits: Flags of the Detroit River.”
Dan Harrison is an historical archaeologist specializing in the maritime culture and heritage of the Great Lakes. He has written widely on indigenous and maritime culture. His publications include “‘They had won their battle, too:’ an Odawa narrative from the War of 1812,” “Maritime Archaeology as Evidence-Based Storytelling,” and “Frontier Arms Race,” which tells the story of 18th-century cannons recovered from the Detroit River.
John Hartig, a Great Lakes scientist and nonfiction author, serves as a Visiting Scholar at University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and board member at the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. The author of the prizewinning book Waterfront Porch, on the restoration of the Detroit River, he has been recognized as a Michigan Notable Leader in Sustainability by Crain’s Detroit and as Conservationist of the Year by the John Muir Association.
Motivated by omissions in a PBS documentary, historian David Head champions the lives and legacies of extraordinary Black inventors and engineers. As chair of the Black History Committee for its Transport Workers Union, he organized an exhibit on Granville T Woods at the centennial celebration of the New York MTA. As co-chair of the Black Historic Sites Committee for the DHS, he has led efforts to commemorate Cornelius Henderson’s contributions to the design and construction of the Ambassador Bridge.
Yolanda Jack is a Detroit native, an award-winning actress and Educator, and Youth Programs Director at the Charles H. Wright Museum, where she creates programs that introduce students to aspects of African and African American history. Originally trained in acting at Wayne State, she founded One World Theater Company, won Actress of the Year from Detroit Repertory Theater in both 2011 and 2018, and has served on the Detroit Public Television Community Advisory Panel.
Elizabeth James is a program manager with the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at U-M, where her contributions have been recognized with the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award, the Cornerstone Award from the Black Celebratory, and the Ginsburg Award for Service and Social Action. In addition, she serves as advisor for the Black Student Union, planning committee member for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium, and resident storyteller at Camp Michitanki, a camp for transplant recipients.
Detroit’s City Historian Jamon Jordan has been serving residents and visitors for decades in his role as a public intellectual who founded Black Scroll Network in 2013. Jordan’s tours have helped longtime residents, visitors and newcomers alike to understand the history of the city and the role Black and Indigenous people played in its development. Previously, Jordan taught history at the Nsoroma Institute in Detroit for 12 years. He currently serves on the Michigan’s Freedom Trail Commission, which preserves the state’s antislavery history.
Irene Moore Davis is an educator, historian, writer, podcaster, and community advocate with a focus on issues of equity, diversity, inclusion, and African Canadian history. She serves as President of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, Programming Chair at BookFest Windsor and co-host of the All Write in Sin City podcast. In 2022, she received the Harriet Tubman Award for Commitment to a Purpose from the Ontario Black History Society and was named to the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women. Her work on Canadian Black settlements is included in the 2016 book, Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, And The Underground Railroad In The Detroit River Borderland.
Aaron Schillinger is an award-winning filmmaker whose directorial debut is Boblo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale (2021). The documentary, which the Metrotimes called “a magical mystery boat ride of the film,” is narrated by Motown legend Martha Reeves and was selected as the opening night film of the 2021 Freep Film Festival. Aaron is also a cofounder of the Sarah E. Ray Project, an organization shining a light on the forgotten story of a Detroit civil rights pioneer.
Kimberly Simmons is founding president and executive director of the Detroit River Project, which advocates for UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the Detroit River on grounds of its importance for the Underground Railroad. Her nationally recognized program, “Caroline Quarlls, A Family Legacy of Freedom,” was inducted into the National Park Service UGRR Network to Freedom Program in 2005. Kim is a former governor’s appointee of the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission, a consultant to the PBS Documentary, Many Rivers to Cross, and contributor to A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland.
