My own Detroit childhood of the 1950’s-60’s beats at the heart of Hastings Street Blues.
By centering the first-person voices of our remaining elders, I aim to build the community
itself as a character. Memories of holding my mother’s hand as we marched in the Detroit
Walk for Freedom where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King previewed his
“I Have A Dream”
speech in June of 1963, and witnessing the occupation of my public school campus by
federal troops and tanks during the ’67 uprising, compel me to explore the multifaceted
approaches to political, economic and social activism that sustained and transformed the
lives of African Americans in the decades preceding and the years following these pivotal
moments in my personal history. I grew up at a time when music was not an individualized
playlist, but a shared experience in the home, on the streets, in nightclubs, concert halls,
and in the church. I want to explore how the blues Joe Von Battle championed in his record
shop anchored everyday life, and how the cultural earthquake of Motown forever changed
the industry and eclipsed his era. Ultimately, my project wrestles with the bond between
physical place and cultural memory: When the spaces that shaped us are erased, how do
we reckon with the past?
What remains?

— Juanita Anderson, Director