About
The Detroit Church Project was conceived by Michigan State University Professor David Bailey and undergraduate Mark Kelly in the Spring of 2008. At its most basic level, it aims to aid churches in Detroit preserve and promote their history, drawing awareness to a fascinating piece of a fascinating city's story. This website is the ultimate end of the project: to create a complex multimedia website to document the history of black religion in Detroit and to provide a basis for research into its contemporary status and future.
The DCP also has a variety of subsidiary goals: to encourage undergraduate research at Michigan State University; to strengthen the relationship between MSU and Detroit; to challenge existing preconceptions of Detroit history and identity; and to begin a more thorough reconsideration of Detroit's significance in the economic, social, and cultural growth of the United States.
Only in its second year, the project has already collected 5,000 pages of documents and has ambitious plans for growth. Over the next year it seeks to increase the number of churches it is working with, while also augmenting the types of media it collects, including taped recordings of sermons and video recordings of oral history. The Detroit Church Project hopes to continue its steady growth, and hopes to continuously provide a deeper and more substantive inquiry into the history of one of America's greatest cities.