This episode originally aired on April 14, 2021.

This Week on One Detroit, Arts & Culture: 

Bonded Art Exhibit Brings More Than 20 Local Artists to Beacon Park 

Art can bring people together during challenging times, just as it’s done during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last April’s Bonded Art Exhibit at Beacon Park hoped to do just that with a slate of more than 20 local Detroit and metro-area artists — Javier Gonzalez, Quadre Curry, Priscila Phifer, Judy Bowman and more — displaying their work in a COVID-safe, open-air environment. 

One Detroit’s Will Glover caught up with Beacon Park Manager Meg Heeres and exhibit organizer and artist Jonathan Harris to talk about the importance of community gatherings during challenging times and the exhibit’s message of bringing the city and its artists, art collectors and creatives together around art. 

Paradise Valley: The Center of Detroit’s Jazz History 

We all know Detroit as the city of Motown music, but the city’s musical history expands beyond the likes of Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and others. Jazz was just as hot, and at the center of it all was Paradise Valley, where icons like Donald Byrd, Charlie Parker and others stamped jazz into Detroit’s growing history. 

For Detroit Public TV’s “Detroit Jazz City” documentary, “Jazz From Detroit” author Mark Stryker; vocalist, composer and producer Joan Belgrave; and John Penney, Maxine Michaels and Linda Yohn, jazz hosts for WRCJ 90.9 radio, share important stories from the city’s jazz history and the cultural significance the genre brought to the city in the 1950s, ‘60s and beyond. 

Portrait of Black Madonna Still Stands as Symbol of Black Liberation

From the Black Church in Detroit series, produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, American Black Journal explores the history of women in the Black church with a look at the portrait of the Black Madonna, which was unveiled at the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit in 1967. 

Erika “Nireti” Butler, general counsel and assistant secretary at the church, as well as Judge Cynthia Stephens, an executive committee member of the church, and Bishop Mbiyu Chui come together to talk about the church’s founding and the creation of Black liberation theology. Plus, the trio discusses the social and cultural impacts of the portrait, and the significance of showing diverse versions of the iconic image. 

The Craze Behind Detroit’s Famous Coney Dogs 

Whether you’re team Lafeyette or team American, we can all agree Detroit makes the best Coney dogs. And they should— the famous Motor City meal was founded here more than a century ago in the early 1900s. But what’s the story underneath all that meat sauce, mustard and onions? 

From Detroit Public TV’s “Detroit Remember When: Made in the Motor City” documentary, host Erik Smith talks with Joe Grimm, author of “Coney Detroit,” Grace Keros, a 3rd generation owner of American Coney Island, Ken Brown of WJR Radio, and Dearborn Sausage’s Don Kosch, to hear the history of the Coney Island name, it’s rise to fame and why you’ll be craving one after watching this clip. 

 

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