Detroit and Oakland County leaders gathered to unveil a $5,000 outdoor teaching device. It’s a bronze plaque, placed at the entrance to a golf course, and it names a Michigander who broke the state’s color barrier in golf.
In 1966, Ben Davis became the first African American member of Michigan’s Professional Golfers’ Association, a membership long barred to Black people but mandatory for entering tournaments. Two years later, Davis was appointed head pro at Rackham Golf Course, a public course in Huntington Woods operated by the city of Detroit, making Davis the nation’s first African American to hold that position at a municipal golf course.
“He’s our Jackie Robinson of golf, frankly,” Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter told the audience at the unveiling.
Moments later, Coulter along with Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist stood by as Huntington Woods Planning, Zoning and Preservation Administrator Hank Berry tugged canvas from the plaque near the entrance to Rackham Golf Course. That revealed wording that honored Davis as well as the course itself. It was a century ago, in 1923, that philanthropist Horace Rackham gave land for the course, after Rackham bought 150 acres at the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and what was then 10 Mile Road, now the I-696 freeway.
Rackham, phenomenally wealthy from his early investment in the Ford Motor Co., gave the land to the city of Detroit with the request that some should be added to the Detroit Zoo while most of it should become a public golf course. But not just any public course, such as those opening around the country in the 1920s that only welcomed whites. As the new plaque reads, in bronze letters that no book burner can incinerate: Rackham “was for many years one of the few integrated golf courses in the nation.” The plaque continues: “In 1936 the course hired Erellon Ben Davis (1912-2013) to instruct African American patrons. Among his students were Motown artists and Joe Louis. . .”
Those who play Rackham and glimpse it, front and back, will see that one side honors Davis while the other is about the golf course itself. The entire facility is a state historic site, including its Arts and Crafts-style clubhouse.
One person at the unveiling with a strong personal tie was Shaun Thomas, 64, of Detroit, a great-nephew of Ben Davis. Thomas proudly stepped forward to receive a proclamation signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, handed to him by Gilchrist, who said his own father learned…
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