Building Fluency Through Practice and Performance: American History Book

Rhonda Sanders' 1995 book Bronze Pillars is like a brilliant and massive museum built between the covers of a 300+ page, 10-point serif font paperback. Thousands of names and stories reside here, concerning St. John's Street and Floral Park and General Motors and redlining and the Golden Gloves and the Golden Leaf Club and so much besides.

It has taken me a *long* time to finish this book, simply because the quantity and density of information here is truly formidable, but its importance is difficult to overstate. The timing of the publication is significant -- in 1995, Sanders was still able to interview many of the key figures who helped to establish African-American neighborhoods in Floral Park and St. John's Street, both of which were later largely erased by the establishment of I-69 and I-475, and her interviewees were born as early as the turn of the 20th century. A similar project, begun today, would not be able to reach so directly and profoundly to the roots of Flint's Black community, but would have to settle for second and thirdhand accounts.

Moreover, the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach to what merited inclusion (there is a section on "Amusement Parks") is both justified and necessary, as it allows the reader to experience the cultural contours of the community. So often history can read like a dry list of famous and infamous people, but Sanders' history dives so deep, and takes in so much territory, always relying whenever possible upon the direct words of her interviewees, that readers have the experience of encountering history themselves.

Clearly one of the most important books ever written about Flint and a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand this city.