Photos by Harpe Star
The Good Fight
Northern Michigan E3 and Title Track reflect on their efforts for a safer, more inclusive community By Craig Manning It was injustice and tragedy that sparked the formation of Northern Michigan E3. Like so many other organizations and initiatives aimed at fighting back against racism, Northern Michigan E3—with the “E3” standing for “educate, elevate, and engage”—came to be in the midst of the massive racial reckoning that started in the spring of 2020. E3, formerly known as the Northern Michigan Antiracism Task Force, began as an effort by local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community members to organize a “Solidarity with Black Lives Matter” rally at the Traverse City Open Space, in honor of George Floyd. The summer of 2020 saw a global conversation about race that impacted virtually every aspect of modern discourse— from Wall Street to Hollywood to the White House—but those dialogues aren’t nearly as loud and dominant in 2022 as they were two years ago. Tyasha Harrison, a member of the E3 council, likens the initial burst of racial reckoning around Floyd’s murder to a fire. At first, the fire was roaring. Now, it’s lost some of its heat. “That fire kind of died down for a little bit,” Harrison says. “As different things
have happened in the world and in our community, [the racial justice movement] kind of lost its fire.” The leaders of Northern Michigan E3, though, haven’t forgotten. They haven’t forgotten about Floyd, for whom the organization held a candlelit remembrance walk at the Traverse City Civic Center on June 5. Nor have they forgotten the many others who have died as a result of racial violence: The June 5 remembrance walk featured the reading of “a list of names of Black and Brown lives that have been lost due to hate crimes and police brutality.” Perhaps most of all, they haven’t forgotten about the promises that were made in the wake of Floyd’s murder. In 2020, many individuals and businesses pledged to be better: to examine their own biases, to practice antiracism, to find ways of building a better tomorrow. Keepers of the Flame Born from the fire but refusing to burn out with it, E3 is doing its part to keep moving the needle on racial justice in northern Michigan. When the organization formed, it issued a list of 10 demands to the Grand Traverse County Sheriff ’s Department, the Traverse City Police Department, the
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Grand Traverse County Commission, and the City of Traverse City Commission. Those demands called on local leaders and law enforcement to end racial profiling in northern Michigan, to make body cameras and dash cameras common fixtures for all local police officers, and to allow independent citizen oversight of law enforcement practices, among other calls for change. Two years later, E3 has made significant progress on several of those initial priorities. Marshall Collins, another of the organization’s leaders, notes that both the Grand Traverse County Sheriff ’s Department and the Traverse City Police Department have purchased body cams and implemented them as a standard piece of equipment for all officers. Holly T. Bird, meanwhile—another E3 council member, as well as a co-executive director of the local organization Title Track, which among other things provides racial justice trainings—says she’s currently working with an intern to research policies that local law enforcement could adopt as a means of ending racial profiling. In addition, Bird says the organization is working with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights to push law enforcement toward “replacing
policing with resource referrals” in situations where more standard policing can actually escalate situations. Examples can include situations related to drug addiction and drug use, mental health, and domestic violence. “Domestic calls, for example, are a huge, huge number of the calls that law enforcement gets,” Bird explains. “And that really affects people of color, because quite often, our people are treated differently [during police responses]. Women who are encountering a domestic violence situation might be brushed off a little bit more.” The Education Hurdle But progress toward racial justice and equal treatment under the law is historically slow, and that snail’s pace of forward momentum is a constant challenge for organizations like E3. One particular area of difficulty in northern Michigan—and an area that Harrison, Collins, and Bird all see as perhaps the most crucial target for creating change—is education. Teaching kids not just about racism but also sexism, misogyny, ableism, xenophobia, and more, they say, is key to creating a more equal, accepting, and peaceful future. “When it comes down to it, it’s about our kids,” says Collins, who, in addition to
