Sarah Elizabeth Ray

So Detroit itself, getting up to the D, what was the connection? What was the ties?

Well, here's the thing, is I have been working for probably about five or six years on the story of Sarah Elizabeth Ray.

Have you ever heard of her name?

I have not.

You know, you're going to another country.

Well, it wasn't always open to everyone.

Um, and in 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray, who had come to Detroit because of the Great Migration from Tennessee, and her one, her one goal was to get an education.

She had dropped out of high school to work.

So I'm going to read you from the forward that explains the backstory that brought me to the moment when I wanted to collect stories about being black in Detroit in the summertime.

On a cool June morning in 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray stood on the dock along the Detroit River waiting to board the mammoth excursion boat, SS Columbia, known to all as the Pablo boat.

She was the only African-American among her group of 13 gathered there to celebrate their secretarial school graduation.

In fact, she was likely the only African-American among the entire horde of passengers, 3,000 or more.

The organization sued the Boblo Excursion Company, arguing that it had violated Sarah Elizabeth's civil rights under the Michigan Constitution.

Within a few years, her case found its way to the United States Supreme Court, where the National NAACP's Thurgood Marshall filed an amicus brief on her behalf.

On February 2nd, 1948, the Supreme Court ruled in Sarah Elizabeth Ray's favor.

The victory was one step on the NAACP's quest to overturn legal racial segregation in America.