When many people think about the city of Detroit, they think of only negative things. They think of bankruptcy, murder capital, blight etc. When I think of Detroit, I think of home and all of the wonderful memories that I have. For this blog I am going to share with you one of my childhood memories from growing up in Detroit.

On August 14, 2003 at around 4:00 p.m., I was on the couch at my mother’s house watching Recess, when the TV cut off. I looked around and saw that nothing in the house that required power was working. I walked outside on the on to our porch and looked around. A lot of my neighbors had all come outside and everyone started asking if the power was out. The entire block had lost power.

Me, my mom and my brother packed up a few things and headed to my grandparent’s house, where we stayed for the rest of the weekend. The trip was not as hectic as we thought that it would be. Although there was no power, at the time, there were no car accidents and we made it to my grandparent’s house in safely. By this time we had started to realize that the power was out to the entire city.

Having a city wide power outage in the summer seems as if it would be a crazy time with a lot of crime and danger but it was not like that. It actually became one of the best times in my childhood. Since there was no power, everyone that lived on the street came outside. All of the teenagers and kids started to play and all of the adults started to visit each other to talk. It was a blast. We had block-wide games of tag; we played basketball, rode bikes, etc. As the days continued to go on and the power still had not returned, street wide barbequing had begun. All of our neighbors were outside cooking, playing cards, and just having a great time. Even restaurants in the neighborhood, like Subway, began giving out free food.

The blackout lasted only a couple of days but it was a fun time. The neighborhood really came together. Everyone looked out for one another. There was no crime, no fighting, and no issues. The blackout actually brought everyone closer together and made the neighborhood stronger.

Once school started back a few weeks later, everyone couldn’t wait to talk about the blackout and a lot of the stories were very similar. Detroit did not fall apart when the lights went out, it stood tall. Neighbors became friends. I learned a lot about my city during that time and now I am starting to see that same spirit again. It’s dark right now in the city and we are going through a hard time but we are not falling, we are rising and will continue to rise until the lights come back.