Flint Artifacts: O-Jib-Wa Laxative Herb Tea

Flint Artifacts: Farm Motel Mug

Flint Artifacts: Arrowhead Riders Patch

Flint Artifacts: A.C. New Fuel Pump

Flint Artifacts: O-Jib-Wa Reducing Tea

Books About Flint, Michigan

Books about Flint, Michigan

Flint Water Crisis: Curt Guyette on the KWA Pipeline Project

Photo Illustration by Robert Nixon via Metro Times.

If you are trying to understand how the KWA pipeline project is intertwined with the Flint Water Crisis, this story by the Michigan ACLU's Curt Guyette in the Metro Times is essential reading.

Last year, a task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to investigate the causes of the disaster urged prosecutors to do a "complete and thorough review of the development and approval of KWA and of the City of Flint's commitments to KWA water purchases." 

Since then, four officials — including two of the city's former emergency managers — have been charged for allegedly using false pretenses to obtain an $85 million loan needed to finance Flint's share of the new pipeline.
And then there's a report issued earlier this year by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, which spent nearly a year investigating the crisis to determine what role, if any, racism played in creating this completely avoidable manmade disaster.

Read the rest here.

Flint Photos: Greenway Avenue

Thanks to Jim Holbel for the photo.

From Boom to Bust: A Brief History of Flint, Michigan

A brief, breezy and highly personalized history of Flint, Michigan. With footnotes. A few samples:

My hometown, I discovered, was founded on a shady, under-the-table land deal. A ruse, a feint, a dodge. A swindle, to put it another way.

And...

It was a dubious day in local history, one unlikely to be commemorated by a plaque or a marker. What is arguably Flint’s first permanent structure — built by a man who could be considered its first speculator and failed businessman — became its first abandoned property. Obviously, it wouldn’t be the last.

And...

My mother showed me black-and-white photos of my grandparents from their early years in Flint. I remembered my grandma wearing modest house dresses she had sewn herself, accented with blue canvas Keds when she worked around the house. But here she was with her hair in a stylish bob and dressed in full flapper mode. My grandpa was decked out in a tailored suit with wide, peaked lapels and a fedora set at a rakish angle. They were both smiling, their arms around each other, gazing straight at the camera. They looked like Bonnie and Clyde, not the low-key couple I remembered. America was making the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, and my grandparents seemed happy to be a part of it all, eager for what might happen next. Flint and my family had a far different history than I had imagined.

To read the rest, visit Medium.