A new book from Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss explores all that was right with Detroit in 1963. It’s called “Once a Great City.” He talks with Current State’s Scott Pohl.
To see Detroit at its best, you might have to go back about 50 years. Since then, the population has steadily declined, homes are vacant, street lights don’t work, and the Motor City has struggled through a bankruptcy. But in 1963, the car business was booming, Motown was bursting onto the national music scene, and Martin Luther King Jr. tried out his “I Have a Dream” speech in Detroit a couple of months before making it famous in Washington.
In the new book “Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story,” Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss chronicles what might be Detroit's high water mark. Current State’s Scott Pohl speaks with Maraniss ahead of a visit to Okemos on Thursday.