Season 12

“Detroit the city is not a monolith” Norris Howard’s story moves from Great Migration roots in Birmingham Alabama and Dalton Georgia to a family stretched across Detroit’s east and west sides and his own coming of age in Brightmoor. A Michigan Bell union mother taught him that “Black women are superheroes unto themselves” while his father a Navy veteran and psychiatric nurse at Receiving Hospital offered another window into the city and the world. Howard traces his path from Henry Ford Community College to broadcast journalism at Wayne State where a generation of artists thinkers and creators helped shape Detroit’s cultural energy after the 2008 crash. His memories move from Better Made reds and dollar shows to Belle Isle senior skip day St Andrews ghetto tech and serious questions about media politics development and who Detroit’s future is being built for. “Use downtown It belongs to you” captures his larger challenge to Detroiters listen closely question systems and claim the city as ours.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

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Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing [email protected]

Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“I just knew I wanted something different from what I had seen growing up.” Councilmember Latisha Johnson’s story is about discovering Detroit, serving Detroit, and eventually helping shape Detroit’s future. From Kettering High School’s Benjamin Banneker Honors program and summers studying at U of M to working with Detroit’s visitors bureau, Johnson gained a wider view of the city while building relationships and learning how Detroit presents itself to the world. But her path to elected office was grounded even deeper in neighborhood life. She became a block captain, knocked doors around property-tax foreclosure, organized through the East English Village neighborhood association, and helped build MECCA across Morningside, East English Village, and Cornerstone Village. “This is all of our community,” she says, capturing a philosophy that grew from organizing neighbors before representing them. Johnson’s journey offers a look at how neighborhood associations, civic participation, relationship building, and simply showing up can become preparation for public leadership—and why understanding the people on the block matters when you become responsible for decisions on behalf of others as a legislator.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher.

Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing [email protected]

Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“I think my non-traditional journey through academia through life is all a result of God’s bigger purpose for my life.” Dr. Madeline Walker Miller’s story moves through family, faith, environmental justice, entrepreneurship, and a Detroit legacy she now feels responsible for carrying forward. Raised in Palmer Woods near Seven Mile and Woodward, with roots stretching through her father’s Detroit family to West Point Georgia and her mother’s North Nashville upbringing, Walker Miller grew up watching her parents build businesses while Oak Grove AME grounded her in community. At Spelman College, environmental science became real while working alongside Black elders who knew “their water tasted funny and that their air was thick.” That people-centered lens followed her through research on textile waste, the launch of NextTiles during COVID, and doctoral study at the University of Michigan examining energy justice and public housing, including the Villages at Parkside. Her journey also comes full circle through Walker Miller Energy Services, where she now works alongside her mother and sees legacy differently: “It would really trouble me if after watching both of my parents work so hard to build what they have I didn’t get involved in some kind of way.” This conversation asks what happens when education comes home to serve people—and what one generation owes the work built by the generation before it.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher.

Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing [email protected]

Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“I knew instantly that Detroit needed this flavor.” After experiencing a Hearth Summit at Omega Institute in partnership with the Harlem Wellness Center, Dr. Demarra West knew this gathering needed to come to Detroit. Now Hearth Summit Detroit arrives October 8–10, bringing together 200 social entrepreneurs, artists, educators, funders, mental health and holistic practitioners around individual, communal, and ecological wellbeing. West reminds us that “the world has a lot that it can learn from Detroit,” and this summit makes room for that exchange through sound healing, yoga, meditation, art, conversations about Black land and food sovereignty, philanthropy, organizational wellbeing, gentrification, and healing practices. Detroit voices including Dr. Yusef Shakur, Chef Tunde Wey, Brittni Ward, Detroit Black Food Sovereignty Network, Detroit Black Farmers Fund, Keep Growing Detroit, and others join a gathering built not simply to talk about healing but to practice it. Come hear why West believes movements need healthy people—and experience what can happen when Detroit gathers to heal, build, imagine, and connect.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher.

Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing [email protected]

Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“I would come down here and tear out the walls and do the demo myself after I got off work from the Bank.” Richard Hosey didn’t enter Detroit development simply moving money—he grabbed a crowbar, sledgehammer and Sawzall and put his own hands on his first building. “I had to get hit in the head with something before I got a hard hat,” Hosey laughs while describing tearing down walls, hauling debris with day workers and transforming a courtyard into one massive makeshift dumpster to save money. That building became the only property he owns completely himself and, as Hosey says, “by far my baby.” In this Detroit is Different conversation, Hosey connects that sweat equity to a journey rooted in Black Detroit family migration, Bates Academy, Renaissance High School, FAMU, Wall Street ambitions, banking and eventually development. His story reveals how education, access to information and understanding finance can become tools for community ownership. Looking toward Detroit’s future, Hosey wants development knowledge shared wider so more Black and Brown developers can enter the game. His vision moves beyond being one of a few: Detroit’s next chapter should have Black ownership everywhere.

Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different.

Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher.

Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing [email protected]

Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co