- [Announcer] Coming up on "One Detroit," we team up with "BridgeDetroit" for a conversation with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan about the city's progress and challenges during his tenure.

Plus, we'll remember the late poet Nikki Giovanni in a wide- ranging interview about her life and career.

- I hate people that do that.

- [Announcer] And we'll give you some suggestions on how to spend the St. Patrick's Day weekend.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Announcer] Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Female Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEFoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(upbeat music) Just ahead on "One Detroit," in honor of Women's History Month, we'll revisit a conversation with the late Nikki Giovanni about her literary career and a documentary on her life.

And, we'll run down some of the events taking place this weekend in Metro Detroit.

But first up, "One Detroit" partnered with BridgeDetroit for an in-depth conversation with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan as he completes his final term in the city's highest office.

Duggan has announced he's running for governor next year as an independent candidate.

"One Detroit" contributor, Stephen Henderson of "American Black Journal," sat down with the mayor to talk about his successes and challenges over the years and the current state of the city.

(ambient music) - 10 months, you have 10 months left in your term as mayor.

I can remember really clearly your announcement that you were gonna seek the role of mayor in 2013.

A lot has changed since then.

The city is a really, really different place.

At the same time, for some people, it's not as changed as we might hope it should be.

I wanna start with you just kind of giving us an overall picture of where you think things are in the city as you prepare to leave it for other things.

And talk about that gap that still exists, and what levers the mayor can or should be pulling to address those kinds of things as well as celebrate things like the draft and the Train Station.

- Well, those are things that we try to do every day.

Of course in 2014, when the ambulances didn't show up for an hour and half the street lights were out the children couldn't play in the park 'cause the grass wasn't cut all summer.

We had a 20% unemployment rate.

And it has been, every day, trying to create opportunities for all Detroiters.

So that's what we've been about.

Some of the things have been covered more visibly than others.

But if you were in our staff meetings, we are just as focused on the fact that we built a billion two in new affordable housing just in the last six years.

Every single one of those was a project that took a good deal of work, but we were very conscious of the fact of creating a city where there's room for everybody.

- What do you see as the opportunity for the next mayor to build on what's happening?

And what do you see as the challenges, the things that that person's gonna have to do more of or be more aggressive about to move things faster?

- You know, the only hesitation I had, and I by and large feel like I did what I came to do and 12 years was enough, is what is happening with the violence rate is remarkable.

I mean, almost 400 homicides the year before I ran down to 200 last year.

We're down again so far this year.

Boston last year had 28.

It is possible to get violence down.

We're using a number of the Boston tactics.

We've added a number of our own that other cities are copying.

But Boston got there through 20 years of sustained strategy.

And I'm hoping that whoever succeeds me sticks with the commitment we've made to the community policing, to the use of technology, to the use of the Community Violence Intervention Teams.

The strategies that we have put together are driving the violence down, but it needs to be continued for another 10 years.

I'd love to see the day when there's not 100 homicides in the City of Detroit.

And I do think I will live to see that day.

- I talk a lot about the really great things that are happening with investment and development in the city, and the need to connect that more directly with what's happening to people in other parts of the city.

Even just as a demonstration, to say, "This and this are related."

In other words, it's connected.

It's one city, not two.

How can you do that?

Is that possible?

- You know, I think the 600 Block Club presidents of the city would greatly disagree with what you just said.

- Would they?

Why?

- Absolutely.

Again, the property values across this city have tripled in the last 10 years.

- They've gone up.

I mean, they haven't gone up; they've tripled.

I mean, they've been leading America.

And that's because recovery has spread to every corner.

But I will take you down Kercheval near McClellan that was pretty much an abandoned zone 10 years ago that is now filled with shops and housing.

Take you down Rosa Parks which was the site of the violence in '67, and you'll see a church has now been renovated as a very active restaurant and community center.

We can go down McNichols near Livernois where five years ago, every one of those storefronts was covered by plywood.

- Was closed.

- Now, we have a new Merchant Bank.

We've got new housing going up because the adjoining neighborhoods are there.

Take you through neighborhood after neighborhood.

East Warren, go check out Warren near Cadieux and how that is as opposed to five years ago.

All the new housing and restaurants and they are driven by neighborhood groups, Block Clubs.

And we are seeing a neighborhood development like we haven't seen in decades.

And I do think people see that.

Has it gotten to every corner of the city?

No, but I never thought I'd see Dexter with what is happening there today which will be I think the next recovering corridor in the city.

And so, I'm really proud of what's happened.

We just opened over across from Clark Park, beautiful La Joya Gardens.

And that park is spectacular.

Again, that neighborhood.

I can go one after another.

So when you say...

Your neighborhood where you built on over in Tuxedo, I mean, did you ever think you'd see carpentry schools down the street?

- Absolutely not.

But then, of course, you hear from folks who are saying, "When is my turn?

"When is it gonna happen where I live?"

- Probably the neighborhood that said that to me the most was the Midwest neighborhood over near Tireman and Livernois when we put the Joe Louis Greenway through there and opened it.

And everybody along that Greenway is fixing up their house.

We actually have new houses being built in that neighborhood adjacent to the Greenway.

And that Greenway is winding through abandoned railroad track that had been covered with scrapped tires.

So again, I take issue with your statement that we aren't getting to neighborhoods.

I'm in these neighborhoods all the time with people who are very proud.

- The next mayor is gonna take office in the second year of the second Trump administration.

Things were really different for the last four years for Detroit.

Partially because of COVID, but also partially because of the relationship that you were able to take advantage of with the White House.

Talk a little bit about how that changes and what that means for leadership in the city in terms of maintaining that momentum.

- It just means that you have to run the city in a normal way.

We did not have problems when Trump was the president.

We were operating just fine.

I stayed off... - How did you make that possible?

- Again, we just did our jobs.

I stayed off his radar screens.

I didn't pick fights with him.

I didn't tweet and attack him.

My style is not calling attention to myself by picking partisan fights.

But we had, for example, demolition money that was awarded under Obama that continued through two years outta Trump.

We continued to manage it properly, and Trump didn't bother us at all.

Ben Carson, you know, was from the City of Detroit.

I had him and his wife Candy over to the Manoogian for dinner.

And we got funding to get lead outta houses in Southwest Detroit.

There are ways to build relationships with the other party.

Now Joe Biden, it was a one in a million relationship between me and him.

We're just very close personally.

And it paid off for us in a big way.

But we were doing just fine as a city before COVID hit under Trump.

- You don't worry about the money not being the same.

I mean there was a lot of money coming to Detroit in the last four years in particular.

- So most cities in America, when they got the American Rescue Plan money poured it into their General Fund to cover the deficits.

In Detroit, we weren't running deficits.

Even in COVID, we were running in the black.

So every dollar that we took in, we spent on things that would have 10 years of value.

We redid parks, we built rec centers, we took out the Packard Plant, for example, things that are gonna have long-term benefit.

So the city is not going to have to ratchet down.

And council was very responsible in all this understanding we're gonna use one-time money for one-time things.

There's a lot of cities in this country that are right now looking at deficits in the next year 'cause they didn't do that.

In the city of Detroit, we're looking at a city that's gonna be left with $500 or $600 million in rainy day funds and reserves and a balanced budget.

- So you're not worried about some of the other initiatives from Washington.

If they ratchet that down, that's not... - It's a fight we have every year.

So if they cut funding for affordable housing, every city in America is gonna have to push back on that.

If they cut funding for transit, every city in America is gonna have to fight back on that.

But Detroit's not gonna be unique.

We'll be dealing with the same issues as everybody else.

- Are there departments that you worry about in terms of their functioning under new leadership?

- I don't know about new leadership.

We still are not where we should be in the permitting and opening new business in this town.

- Yeah, everybody says that.

- And so, we are a lot better than where we were.

You can now at least do your forms online and not have to stand in four different lines in City Hall.

But I have a team now that is benchmarking the most efficient cities in Michigan.

And I said, "I don't want you to tell me "you made it a little bit better than it was before.

"I want you to show me the best city in Michigan "in permitting, and I want you to show me every step.

"Why do we have a step they don't have?

"Why do we have a fee they don't have?"

And I think getting the culture of bSIG to make the permitting of new businesses a competitive advantage is something that I haven't gotten to effectively enough, something that I would be doing.

A new mayor's gonna have to deal with that.

Although I hope in the next 10 months to get them certainly a running start.

But when I think about the things that haven't gotten done, Detroit Promise just aggravates the heck outta me, that we have not made this a part of the culture.

- The college scholarships for graduates.

- Every kid in this city who goes to high school in the city has their college tuition guaranteed.

And I just met with a group of 18 to 22 year olds over at Newlab the other day saying, "How many of you knew at 13 and 14 it was there?

"By 12th grade, your counselor's running around."

And one of the women there says, "I moved from Kalamazoo.

"In Kalamazoo, I knew at seven years old "about the Kalamazoo Promise that I can go to college."

And we've done a lot of billboard and radio ads.

We have not gotten into the schools and gotten people to understand that you have an enormous advantage being born in Detroit that your college is paid for.

I haven't done a good enough job of that.

And so that's something I'm gonna work on this year.

The next mayor has an enormous potential advantage.

If you get every seven and eight-year-old in the city to know when they run into their friends in the suburbs, "I'm going to college," it changes the culture of the city.

- [Announcer] March is Women's History Month.

And recently, we lost one of the nation's most widely read female poets.

Nikki Giovanni passed away last December at the age of 81.

She first gained popularity during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and '70s.

"One Detroit" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ, had the opportunity to talk with Giovanni at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History during one of her public appearances last year.

(ambient music) - I wanted to start this conversation going back to your first reading at Birdland.

And that story was really interesting to me about how that came to be.

Can you recount that moment for our viewers?

- Sure, I'll never forget.

My mother's a jazz fan.

And so when my second book came out, "Black Judgement," I thought, "Well, what would be the most perfect place "to have the debut of that book?"

And I thought, Birdland.

And Birdland was down.

That's in the old days when Birdland was down.

And it's New York, you know.

And, of course, the "New York Times" was up.

So a lot has changed since then.

But I just went and went down.

Because on Mondays, almost nobody's in the clubs.

And I just went downstairs and said, "You know, I'd like to meet Mr.

Logan."

Because Logan and Wilson Pickett owned Birdland.

- Okay.

- And he said, "I'm Harold Logan; who are you?"

And, "I'm Nikki Giovanni.

"I'm a poet and I'd like to have a reading at your club."

And he just looked at me like, what?

And I said, "Well, you know, you're closed on Sunday."

That's in the old days when they were closed on Sunday.

Said, "You're closed on Sunday, so I was thinking "to have a reading at your club on Sunday "if it's okay with you."

He said, "Well, what you gonna pay me?"

I said, "Oh, Mr. Logan, I don't have any money; I'm a poet."

(Nikki laughs) You know, that's a silly question.

And so he thought about it for minute I guess and said, "If that fool is crazy enough "to come down here and ask me."

He said, "Well, I tell you what.

"You bring me 100 people and you can have the club.

"99 people and you'll owe me $500."

I said, "Well, thank you."

And we shook hands.

It's one of those like, "Oh, was that wise?"

And so, I started working on it.

You know, you can get 100 people to do anything.

Well, you can.

But where the club is and the way it goes.

So on Sunday...

I had Morgan Freeman was my next door neighbor, Novella Nelson, Barbara Ann Teer.

So I knew a lot of people, and they all agreed to read.

And so the line starts, and then the line turned.

And when they did that, the "New York Times" was wondering, "Well, what are those mostly Black people doing down there?"

So they sent a reporter down.

And he said, you know, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni."

And he finally got to me.

He said, "I'm looking for Nick Giovanni."

I said, "Well, I'm Nikki Giovanni."

He said, "No, no, where is he?"

It's just the way people looked at things.

I said, "Well."

I figured, "He'll find out eventually" - He'll figure it out; he'll the picture.

- But they did, because of the line and everything, it got a headline in the what they called the extra, the second.

Because nobody had seen a poet bring that, you know, to bring that many people into a club.

It was great.

- So you held up your end of the deal?

- I did.

- You didn't owe Mr. Logan $500.

You brought over 100 people.

- Yeah, much over.

- And a new audience to Birdland.

I wanna fast forward to today, when the truths are not being told about history, books are being banned, you seek to continue to share the truth about history.

Your documentary, "Going to Mars," definitely reflects an accurate depiction of history.

But you just recently worked with Javon Jackson from the Jazz Messengers on a project, "The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni," where you present sacred or gospel hymns and jazz.

What was the importance to you of focusing on those particular genres?

- Well, first of all, I was a good friend of Nina Simone.

And one of her favorite songs was "Night Song."

So I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something with it?"

And Javan had said...

I had said to Jovan, "You know, we ought to do something, "spirituals or something together."

And he said, "You know, I was thinking the same thing."

I don't know if he was or wasn't, or just trying to be nice.

But we decided, let's do it.

He said, "Why don't you send me 10 or or 12 tunes?"

And I sent them, but the only song that was not a spiritual was "Night Song."

And I said, "This is one of Nina's songs," which I knew because I knew Nina, and it's the only song... 'Cause I can't sing.

And I said that to him, "I'm not a singer, "but this is a song I want to sing."

And he called me back.

He said, "Well, Nikki, you know, it's a lot of people "that are making records that can't sing, "so you're not alone."

I said, "Javan, I don't know "if you should say it like that."

I really love him.

- So you've taken these words, these stories, and put it into this documentary.

It's a must see, "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project."

And it does a great job of reflecting on the past, examining the present, and taking a little sneak peek into the future, telling the story of your life.

I watched it, and I could not watch it without stopping and pressing rewind over.

I didn't make it past the first 30 minutes.

I was pressing rewind over and over again and just taking in the content.

And I promise, if you watch it again, you're gonna learn something new.

How did you initially feel about having a documentary about your life created?

- I was against it.

And Rada Studio and Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson brought that to us.

But to come to me, you have to go through Ginny Fowler because she handles all of that.

And Michelle called Ginny and said, "We'd like to do this documentary."

Our office is small.

It's three people, and Gloria is the other as our attorney.

And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna call Gloria "and see what she thinks."

Because Ginny had already said, "I want it.

"I think you should do it."

And I called Gloria, and Gloria said "Nik, you should do it."

So I was like, "How did I get outvoted in my own company?"

(Cecelia and Nikki laugh) But I was outvoted, so I just got out of the way.

And I would say that to any artist, anywhere.

I did my work, because I created the work.

And I had to have some faith in the people that were gonna do something else with it.

And I did, I had faith that Ginny and Gloria are gonna make the right decision, because that's what they do.

We've been together for 50 years or more now.

And it was just important to not...

I don't know film, so it was important for me not to do something that I don't know.

So I just stepped back and let them do it.

So they were the ones.

Michele, essentially, was the one that thought, "Okay, this is what's important," because I'm a space freak.

And I know that as we go to the future, honestly, there has to be life in the galaxy because anything else is illogical.

And I would say that if I were teaching the class, when I was teaching.

To think that only the third planet from the yellow sun is the only life in this galaxy is illogical.

It doesn't work, it's wrong.

And if that's illogical, that means that you have to look for, what is the other life?

And what I think that we need to be telling our children, Nina says, "to be young, gifted and Black."

I think that we need to remind life forms, us, on this planet that we are all earthlings, and that what we share is not the color of our skin or our gender or our religion, none of these things.

What we share is that we live on this planet, which means we should treat each other better.

And I think we should start in preschool to say, when the kids say, you know, "Who are you," the answer is, "I'm an earthling."

So that when they go into... Because somebody's going.

We have people in space, and somebody's going beyond that into the galaxy.

And when some other life form says, "Who are you," the answer has to be, "We're earthlings."

Because nothing else will make sense to them.

If we said, "Oh, I come from Detroit," they'd be looking at you like, what?

I mean they're not against it, you know, but "What, what's a Detroit?"

- Our basic form is, we're an earthling.

We're human beings.

- We're an earthling.

And then we saying, "Where are you?"

Say, "I'm a Jupitarian."

But I'm a big fan of Mars, because we know that there was water on Mars.

That we know because we can see it.

If you look at Mars, you can see where the rivers were.

And again, logically speaking, Mars burned itself up which we, as we're speaking, are in danger of doing.

Because it only takes a couple of nuclear bombs and we're gone.

- Right.

- And we'll be the same way.

And so you have to learn, what else is out there?

What do we learn from what is out there?

And how do we learn to get along with it?

Which is why the documentary starts with, "The only way to understand space is through Black women."

- Well, I was wondering if, before you leave, if you would read a poem for us from your book?

- Oh, I'd be delighted.

"I suppose living in a materialistic society "Luxury to some would be having more than what you need.

"Living in an electronic age "Seeing the whole world by pushing a button "To the nth degree might perhaps be adequately represented "By having someone there to push the buttons for you.

"I have thought if only I could become rich and famous "I would live luxuriously in New York "Knowing famous people, eating in expensive restaurants "Calling long distance anytime I want.

"But you held me on5 evening "And now I know the ultimate luxury of your love" - [Announcer] St. Patrick's Day is Monday.

But the holiday fun gets started this weekend in Metro Detroit.

Plus, there are plenty of other entertaining events taking place around town.

Dave Wagner and Cecelia Sharp from 90.9 WRCJ have today's "One Detroit Weekend."

- Hey everyone, Dave and I are thrilled to give you some ideas for local excursions this weekend and beyond.

So Dave, what do you have first on your list?

- Well, Cecilia, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater makes a stop at the Detroit Opera House Friday, March 14th through March 16th.

The company will be performing different programs depending on the day.

So check out the website and take the quiz to figure out which performance you want to see.

Or just see them all.

- [Cecelia] Now on Saturday, March 15th, "Dude Dads on Thin Ice Tour" comes to the Royal Oak Music Theater where Taylor Calmus brings his relatable comedy about parenthood to the stage.

- Of course, Monday is St. Patrick's Day.

And Detroit has an abundance of shamrock-filled festivities to attend, like the Detroit Shamrock Festival at the Detroit Festival Grounds Saturday, March 15th.

There will be live music, food trucks, a giant heated tent, and beer to enjoy.

- [Cecelia] Ooh.

And the tradition of Detroit St. Patrick's Day Parade continues on Sunday, March 16th in Corktown.

It is one of the country's largest St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

- Well, let's hope we get some good weather this weekend.

It's always the luck of the Irish, right?

- Yep.

- And if you had your fill of St. Patrick's fun by March 17th, then head over to Aretha's Jazz Cafe to enjoy a night of jazz with Sky Covington's Satin Doll Revue.

- Of course, there's so much else to do this St. Patrick's Day weekend, so stay tuned for a few more of our favorite picks.

Have a fantastic weekend.

(ambient music) - [Announcer] That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on.

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(ambient music) - [Narrator For Commercial] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Announcer] Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Female Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEFoundation.com.

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(upbeat music) (upbeat piano music)