I represent a local group of citizens called Christians for Racial Understanding, or CRU, which seeks to promote racial harmony. For more information, write to northwoodscru@yahoo.com.

CRU congratulates the City of Kingsford on its Centennial! We love our community and join everyone in celebrating the good things that Kingsford has accomplished in its 100-year history.

At the same time, we want to point out a historical event that is not widely known.

For Kingford’s 75th anniversary, local historian William Cummings compiled a book of newspaper clippings titled, “Kingsford: The Town FORD Built in Dickinson County, Michigan.” The Ford Motor Company certainly had a huge impact on the area, creating thousands of jobs, with all the homes, businesses, schools, churches and everything else that goes with a surge in population.

However, Ford also had a big impact in limiting the population — to white people. Pages 94-100 of Cummings’ book document an incident that happened in 1924. Three Chicago men hatched a scheme of purchasing a tract of land, which they called “Wisconsin Heights,” across the river from the Ford plant. Then they advertised in black communities in the Midwest and Northeast that Ford would hire blacks to work in the new chemical plant it was building. They offered lots where black families could build homes, plant gardens and establish a community.

When the white people of the area caught wind of it, there was an uproar. It was squelched only when Edward Kingsford, general manager of the Ford Motor Company here, issued a formal statement that Ford would not hire any “negroes” in Iron Mountain.

In the meantime, a few black men visited the area, but their hopes for starting a new life for their families were dashed. A few months later, the newspaper reported that 150 — or, from another source, 800 — men formed a new local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and burned a large cross on Millie Hill.

Why do we bring up this ugly incident that happened almost 100 years ago? Especially now, at a time of celebration? We believe that the best way to honor those who went before us is to be thankful for the good things they did, learn from their mistakes and build on what they left us in order to create a better future.

Learning about this event and other racist aspects of our past can help us understand our present situation, such as why there are so few black people in our community. It can also foster reconciliation. Many people of color in our country feel, correctly we think, that many whites ignore or minimize the history of racism that still impacts us today. Facing that history in a healthy way can help build interracial harmony. We need to get our skeletons out of the closet in order to give them a proper burial!

Looking back, we can see how far we have come in achieving racial justice. Let us continue the journey. In 1924, black people were denied the opportunity to help build this community and share in its blessings. Today, we can warmly welcome people of all races, and recognize that they all have unique gifts to contribute to the common good. The baton is in our hands now.