Overview
I am the river. Blue and green, fast and flowing,
sweeping river grasses aside . . .
moving between Lake Erie and Detroit.
The Detroit River has long had a story to tell. It has seen a time before people. And it has seen many faces cross its waters, from Indigenous people guiding canoes to settlers on its banks and freedom seekers riding the underground railroad north toward liberty, with Bob-Lo Island at the river’s end, so close to Canada. At one time, a giant steamboat carried hundreds of excited children and adults to the amusement park that was built on Bob-Lo.
But Sarah E. Ray discovered in 1945 that not all people were invited on this boat, to this island, once a symbol of the journey to freedom. It depended, she discovered, on the color of your skin.
This is the dramatic story of how one young woman’s courage could create a dramatic turning point that would stand out proudly, and forevermore, in the history of a river older than the country called America.
The book, I Am the River: Sarah E. Ray and the Bob-Lo Boat [Bulk, Wholesale, Quantity] ISBN#9781646145805 in Hardcover by Leah Henderson, Patricia Lee Gauch may be ordered in bulk quantities. Minimum starts at 25 copies. Availability based on publisher status and quantity being ordered.
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