ON THE MORNING OF JULY 3, AS DOZENS OF PEOPLE flocked to the center of Detroit to begin a seven-day, 70-mile walk from the Motor City to Flint, Michigan, Mona Stonefish, an indigenous elder with gray-streaked hair, blessed the group with the Anishinaabe water song. “If there’s no water, our children will not survive,” Stonefish said before breaking into song, keeping the beat by shaking a gum container filled with coins.
The group had gathered in front of City Hall in downtown Detroit, and all around them, the business district was revving to life. Young transplants were sipping coffee nearby, while employees from Quicken Loans, a mortgage-lending company whose owner, Dan Gilbert, is driving much of the city’s targeted gentrification, breezed to work. Here, it seemed, was a city experiencing…
