Essay: Back to the Future - 8.23.10

Ever wonder what the underground railroad or Detroit’s gangster era were really like? There’s a man in Detroit who specializes in taking people there.

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Ever wonder what it would have been like to have been around during Prohibition, when rum-runners in speedboats crossed the Detroit River in the dead of night, trying to keep their precious illegal cargo from federal agents? How about during slavery, when Michigan and Canada were the final stops on the underground railroad?

Well, we can’t time-travel, at least not yet. But Stewart McMillin, a retired high school teacher, tries to offer the next best thing. For a fee that barely covers his costs, he leads a near-constant stream of tours of Michigan’s fascinating and mostly forgotten past.

Last week, for example, he led one of his most popular excursions, his African-American History and Culture Tour of Detroit. I personally loathe most tours, but his are different. He knows what to see and where to go, and manages to fit an almost unbelievable amount into a very full day.

He has what seems like inexhaustible energy. His business card says simply, Stewart McMillan: Since 1940. That’s not when his tours (www.McMillintours.com) began; that’s the year he was born.

However, he seems younger, in part because of his puckish wit. I am a good bit younger than he, and his schedule could certainly exhaust me. This week, he’s leading an all-day tour of Detroit’s historic churches on Thursday. Two days later, he is running his Canada Prohibition Tour, which will visit many of the famous smuggling sites and end up in a still-functioning tavern of the day.

And yes, those old enough will be able to sample the stuff. For those who want an even bigger taste of the gangster era, there is his Hootch, Hoodlums and Hoods tour on November.

He also does day-long tours of Muslim and Arab sites in the Detroit area and in October, is leading an ambitious four-day excursion to underground railroad sites in Ohio and Kentucky.

I have met black activists and historians who have gone along. Many were skeptical that he knew very much about what he was talking about. Later, they told me they were the ones who learned they didn’t know as much as they’d thought.

Sometimes, to be fair, they say it’s a little hard to get him to stop talking. He loves this stuff. But it’s all fascinating.

By the way, this guy is officially retired. So -- where does all this come from? He says it started because over a twenty-nine year career as a teacher in the suburbs, he had only one black student. He found himself taking his charges to visit mostly black high-schools in Detroit, and to learn about the city.

Now, he does the same for adults. He actually makes little distinction between his professional and personal life; many of the tours end up with a pizza party at his home, which, as you might suspect, is crammed with historical souvenirs.

When McMillin takes time off, his idea of a way to relax is travel. He‘s visited more than a hundred and twenty countries, and all fifty states. Africa has, in fact become his favorite place. Yet he says he’s devoting the rest of his life to helping Detroit and Michigan discover its heritage. He thinks we can’t possibly figure out where we should go until we understand where we’ve been.

Which makes a lot of sense to me.

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[Alibifiremwc]

Without such people, the obliteration of history would be unrestrained.