When will the statute of limitations run out on Howell’s racist reputation?
I’ve asked myself that question many times. I’ve lived in this city since early 1990, and I started covering it for the Livingston County Press as a reporter later that same year. I am still familiar with most of the movers and shakers, and even though I’ve written a lot about Howell’s reputation, I am no expert on racism or character redemption.
The City of Howell is making a move to try to change its reputation. After a small group of Nazis protested in downtown Brighton and Howell in the summer, and then again at a performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” at Howell’s American Legion Post 141 in the fall, the city decided to look for some public relations expertise so that when things like these happen, people don’t shrug and say, “Well, it’s Howell. What do you expect? That’s what they do there.”
In her last community event in the 7th Congressional District before heading to Washington, D.C., as our senator, then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin hosted a roundtable at the Howell Carnegie District Library with those affected by and working to surmount those Nazi appearances. Attending were representatives from the Fowlerville Community Theatre, the American Legion, the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce, the Livingston Diversity Council, the library and city law enforcement, as well as business owners and city leaders. I wrangled myself an invite.
It was a good, frank discussion.
Calling the protest at the performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” “shocking and unacceptable,” Slotkin commended the swift response in putting out a coordinated community statement denouncing it: “Although we recognize right to free speech, these demonstrators do not reflect the values of the Howell community,” the statement read in part. “The City of Howell, the Livingston Diversity Council and the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce stand united in condemning this group’s racist ideology.”
“This final community roundtable was an opportunity to reflect on how much more we can do when we work together,” Slotkin said afterward. “The conversation proved there are dedicated people here willing to stand up to hate.”
But it’s still so frustrating to those of us who live here, who work here, and who know Howell well. This city has stood up to hate over and over and over again, yet it still finds itself cast as Klan central, all because of one man who died 30-some years ago.
“As much as we do to overcome (the reputation) and highlight the good things, a group of five or six people get together and it’s national news,” said Mayor Bob Ellis.
He explained that the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments identified three challenges facing Livingston County’s economic development: a lack of public transportation; a lack of affordable housing; and its racist reputation.
Ellis said the city needs some innovative ideas, and it’s looking to hire some public relations help.
“Just putting out good news isn’t working,” he said. “Five people come with a flag, and all we’ve done over 10 years is gone.”
While he realizes the reputation is impeding the community, Ellis remains optimistic. “I think there’s got to be a way to counter people’s impressions,” he said.
I’m crossing my fingers.
What I believe about Howell from knowing it well is that it is no more or less racist than any other mostly white community. That’s absolutely nothing to be proud of, to be sure, but it is the truth of what I’ve learned about the city after living here and covering it for 35 years.
I grew up in what was then lily-white East Detroit. At the end of my street, I watched tanks and soldiers travel the unfinished roadbed of I-94 from Selfridge Air National Guard base to Detroit during the 1967 riots, and I was scared by the anger and fright of the adults in my community; I was later terrified by the unfiltered furor over busing a couple years after that, some of it expressed in the loudest, coarsest, most racist of terms.
As a child and teen, I did not understand that these two things fueled the flight of whites to Livingston County. The population of Livingston County in the tumultuous 1970s exploded by a whopping 70%, to just over 100,000 residents. Today, there are about 198,000 people here, 97% of whom are white, and less than 1% of whom are Black. I don’t think that racial gap is going to change anytime soon without some kind of divine intervention. What form that takes, I haven’t a clue.
The question someone has to figure out is how Howell in particular and Livingston County in general can change this reputation, known around the globe. I am glad the city is taking proactive steps to try to do just that.
There are a couple reasons, I believe, that Howell is having trouble shaking its big Scarlet R. The biggest one of all is, of course, Bob Miles, who moved to Livingston County in 1964, and lived in downtown Howell for a bit before moving north to Cohoctah Township, to the farm where he held cross burnings. Miles served as grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan from 1969-1971. His heyday coincided nicely with the white flight from Detroit, and he capitalized on it.
“I think Bob Miles created (the county’s racist image),” said Lee Reeves, the former director of the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce, in a news story before a Klan group from outside of Michigan rallied at the historic courthouse in 1994. “Any community has a racist component to it. Certainly every community, and certainly Howell has that kind of racism, but I don’t think any community has done as much to change its image in that regards as Howell.”
I agree with her: There has never been a community that has worked harder to rid itself of the Klan stench as Howell.
The 1994 Klan rally on the steps of the historic Livingston County Courthouse in the heart of downtown Howell was one of my first stories as the newly appointed editor of The Livingston County Press. The county fought like hell against the Klan’s plans, and it tried to move the rally away from the beloved old courthouse. The Community Coalition was born, and its response was coordinated, huge, and effective. You can read all about it by clicking here.
And yet the reputation remains.
I believe that even though there is no Klan group in Livingston County, Miles’ time here (he died in 1992) created this racist bubble over the community that refuses to burst.
Now, Miles was a uniquely effective ambassador for the Klan. Old-timers always described him to me as well-spoken, charming, likable and intelligent — some seemed quite taken with him — and it appears he had a cozy relationship with the newspaper at that time.
As much as I loved working at the Livingston County Press during my two decades there, and as proud as I will forever be about the great community journalism we produced, I maintain the paper of the Miles era bears some responsibility for helping create Bob Miles the media darling: it elevated Miles’ standing in the community by treating him as if he were president of the Rotary Club rather than the grand dragon of the Klan. It’s simply stunning. His opinion is quoted in current events stories alongside other community members, some of whom I know. He wrote numerous long letters to the editor. Columnists wrote pieces supportive of him after he was egged at an event at Wayne State University in 1972. He wrote pieces casting himself as the victim — always the victim — always claiming forces were trying to deny him his free speech. The news stories were sympathetic in tone, as if Miles were a hometown hero.
My jaw dropped when I ran across this piece in a column back then called “Short Shorts,” in which the LCP would run small bits. This is the “Short Shorts” column from Wednesday, May 20, 1970, and I’ve included the entire piece because I am shocked by how ordinary and mundane the Miles piece reads, running just above a bit about the Historical Society putting together a committee to trace the ancestry of Livingston County’s founders. (The Miles piece is the second item.)
After the Nazi appearances this summer, Mayor Ellis said the city was inundated with hate messages.
“They came from all over,” he said. “Especially from California and Arizona, about how racist we were, from people who said they didn’t want to be associated with Howell.”
The calls rattled and upset everyone at city hall; the city council held a work session to discuss it.
“We talked about the idea of doing something to change the narrative and counter this negative media attention the city is getting,” Ellis said.
And the idea to seek some public relations expertise was born.
While writing this piece, I ventured into the “Howell reputation” internet rabbit hole, and I came upon this Reddit thread. I wasn’t surprised by anything I read. There were the usual takes on the community — racist, white, KKK — as well as some posters defending it. You can peruse it yourself by clicking here.
In the thread, Roadpilot66 posted this: “I’ve lived in both Detroit (proper) and the Brighton/Howell area. You’ve got as much chance of running into a KKK meeting in Howell as you do running into a Black Panther Party meeting in Detroit. Stereotyping B/H as nothing but white racists is no different than stereotyping Detroit as nothing but criminals and thugs — neither are true. It’s a complete joke to see people spew such nonsense about both cities.”
So the question remains whether there is space for the city to move beyond the Miles/Klan era from over 50 years ago.
There’s been talk of putting up a statue of Lulu Childers. Will honoring one of Howell’s most celebrated women, who happens to be Black, be enough to change perceptions?
Will time heal all?
And now, can a public relations effort change things?
I don’t know if a PR campaign will help, but I don’t think it can hurt.
What gives me hope is that Howell, once again, is showing that it’s not the kind of town to quit trying.
