Politics / Civil rights & activism
Erma Henderson
1917–2009 · civil rights activist, city council president
Black Bottom-raised social worker and civil rights leader who became the first Black woman on the Detroit City Council and its first Black president (1977–1989), and led the fight against redlining.
- Born
Pensacola, Florida- Died
aged 92- Birth name
- Erma Lois McQueen
- Also known as
- Erma L. Henderson
- Detroit years
- 1918–2009
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Erma McQueen was born in Pensacola, Florida, in 1917 and brought to Detroit as a baby in 1918, part of the Great Migration. Raised by her mother in the Black Bottom neighborhood, she attended Eastern High School and later earned a master's in social work at Wayne State. Politically active from her teens, she founded a women's auxiliary to a Republican club at seventeen, sat on the Progressive Party's national committee in 1948 and later became a Democrat, working on local campaigns and civil rights causes. When councilman Robert Tindal died in 1971, she won the seat in a 1972 special election, becoming the first African American woman on the Detroit City Council. In 1977 she succeeded Carl Levin as council president, the first Black person in the post, and served three terms over twelve years. In 1975 she founded a statewide coalition against redlining that helped win a 1977 Michigan law banning the practice. She published her memoir, Down Through the Years, in 2004 and died in 2009.
Highlights
- First African American woman elected to the Detroit City Council (1972)
- First Black president of the Detroit City Council, 1977–1989
- Founded a statewide anti-redlining coalition (1975)
- Master of social work from Wayne State University
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1972–1989
The Spirit of Detroit
Seat of the City Council, where she served for seventeen years, twelve of them as president.