Detroit is Different

  • Latest episode: “Detroit is the Mecca for Pan-African Thought and Action: Baba Mike Anderson on New Afrika”
  • Latest episode: “From Road Rallies to Public Service: Mallory McMorrow’s Michigan Story”
  • Latest episode: “Freedom Fighter is in My Blood: Jenell Mansfield”

  • Latest episode: “Detroit is the Mecca for Pan-African Thought and Action: Baba Mike Anderson on New Afrika”
  • Latest episode: “From Road Rallies to Public Service: Mallory McMorrow’s Michigan Story”
  • Latest episode: “Freedom Fighter is in My Blood: Jenell Mansfield”

“An abandoned house is not an abandoned house unless I see it as that.” In this soul-stirring Detroit is Different interview, Kim Sherobbi reflects on her lifelong commitment to community, tracing her purpose from childhood fashion shows on Bethune Street to founding the Birwood House as a space of radical love and collective leadership. Guided by a lineage of powerful Black women like her grandmother Lula White—”block club president for real”—and shaped by organizers like Ron Scott and the Boggs Center, Sherobbi affirms, “We can figure out how to go through this journey no matter what.” Her story illustrates how deeply community, family, and grief interweave into our purpose: “Community is big… people came to us and loved on us.” Through organizing block parties, teaching physical education with intention, and nurturing youth through programs like Community Lens, Kim lives the ethos that supporting others in finding their power is where transformation begins.