Detroit historian Jamon Jordan spoke to Cass Tech students on Feb. 13. He was the highlight of Cass’s Black History Program held in the Grand Theater.
Jordan is a historian who made history himself. He became the first official historian of the city of Detroit on Oct. 25, 2021. He is currently a professor at University of Michigan and the founder of a touring service called Black Scroll Network & Tours.
“I thought it was important for Mr. Jordan to speak to CT students because he’s the official historian for the City of Detroit,” said Cass Tech social studies teacher Ms. Mattison. “He has a lot of information to share with students that they can benefit from.”
Cass senior Delise Jones attended the program and learned new things about her city.
“I learned about the street signs and where the names of the streets came from,” Jones said. “It was really interesting to me because I didn’t know the origin of the names.”
Jones said that Cass should have more speakers like Jordan to learn about not only the Black community, but other communities as well.
“I feel like it’s interesting to learn about the history of your city and other people’s history as well,” Jones said.
In his speech, Jordan shared advice to young students that he lives by every day.
“We are not here on our own,” Jordan said. “We are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. There’s some level of honor that we have to have for the people who came before us and there’s some things that we have to live up to because they expected this of us.”
