The Detroit Historical Society has launched a new program celebrating Detroit’s Black Entrepreneurs!  

The Hustle is a new, multi-year project at the Detroit Historical Museum that will celebrate the inspiring stories of Detroit’s Black entrepreneurs —linking contemporary business owners to the pioneers who set their course in an exhilarating series of exhibits and public programming.  

Sweet Potato Sensations, photographed at Eastern Market, Spring 2022

Following in the Footsteps of the Detroit 67 Project  

The Hustle is an exhibition and community engagement project following in the footsteps of the Detroit Historical Society's award-winning Detroit 67 project. 

The Detroit 67 Project launched in 2017 with an unparalleled opportunity for Detroit, the region and beyond. With the 50-year commemoration of the tumultuous summer of 1967, our community could have let this important moment in history pass – and just been an unpleasant and troubling reminder. Instead, the Society used it as a catalyst to engage, reflect and provide opportunities to take the collective action that can help move our community forward. 

Through the project, the Society developed a model for bringing diverse voices and communities together around the effects of a historic crisis to find their roles in the present and inspire the future which culminated in the collection of more than 500 oral histories and an award-winning exhibition on permanent display at the Detroit Historical Museum.  

Using that model, the Society is asking the community to help us identify the business owners making an impact in their communities within Detroit.  

Nominate A Black Entrepreneur  

Through The Hustle, the Society will document the history of Black Detroit businesses that are the backbone of their neighborhoods, but whose contributions are not always recognized in avenues like museum exhibition, programming and events.  

We are asking for community nominations that can be made online or paper ballot (at the Detroit Historical Museum, Dossin Great Lakes Museum and several other sites around the city).  

Anyone can nominate a business or business owner! All nominees will be featured in the project, but 36 selected entrepreneurs will be featured in a series of special exhibitions at the Detroit Historical Museum. Nominate an entrepreneur in-person or at detroithistorical.org/hustle by June 30, 2022.