Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route

A veteran mailman provides an intimate glimpse of Detroiters’ resistance to boom and bust capitalism and structural racism.
by
Year Released
2018
Film Length(s)
82 mins
Closed captioning available Audio description available All4Access available
Remote video URL

Introduction

Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route examines the rise, demise, and contested resurgence of the City of Detroit through the lens of African- American mail carrier, Wendell Watkins, and the committed community he faithfully served for thirty years.

Featured review

A truly brilliant and illuminating film. By the simple act of trailing a mail carrier on his route through the city, Pam Sporn presents a stunning alternative history of Detroit that powerfully illustrates the impact that racist housing policies, capital flight, and neoliberalism have had on Black urban communities.
Robin D.G. Kelley
Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA

Synopsis

In Detroit 48202 we take a journey with Wendell along his route, which winds through the center of what was, once upon a time, a vital and thriving city. We listen in on his conversations with his customers – the resilient Detroiters who share stories of resistance: pushing back against racial segregation in housing; challenging industrial and political disinvestment; and living on reduced pensions as a result of the 2014 municipal bankruptcy. Our characters share stories of hope and propose creative ways to re-imagine an inclusive, productive, equitable and re-invigorated city.

We also meet legendary labor organizer, General Baker, Historian Thomas Sugrue, and Urban Planner June Manning Thomas, who provide a thread of analysis and historical context.

Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route is urgent. It asks: will the resurgence of Detroit center on a high tech, and increasingly white downtown or, will it focus on the vast stretches of neglected neighborhoods that continue to deal with a 40% poverty rate, water shutoffs, tax foreclosures, poor transportation, and a school system in crisis?

Detroit 48202 is an essential tool for teachers and community organizers whose work covers:

*Detroit

*Urban Studies

*Urban Planning/Equitable Development/Design

*Gentrification/Affordable Housing

*African-American Studies

*Redlining/Segregation

*Labor History

*Corporate Disinvestment

*Poverty

Reviews

Detroit 48202 is searing—a powerful reckoning with what it looks like when capital abandons a major American city, and… stunningly beautiful reminder that corporate greed and ugly racism have utterly failed to destroy this same city.
Heather Ann Thompson
author of Pulitzer Prize winning Blood in the Water: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and it’s Legacy, and Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City
DETROIT 48202 provides a rare inside-out perspective on the history of a city that embodies the effects of boom-and-bust capitalism and structural racism as well as the ongoing resilience of a spirited, steadfast and embattled African American community. As the inspirational figure at the film's center, Wendell Watkins offers an intimate, inviting glimpse of a world too often reduced to fatalistic headlines and lurid sound bites.
Film Critic
Ann Hornaday
DETROIT 48202 is a lively and engaging story about the city's black community that speaks in the voices of its residents. It is an excellent teaching tool for classes in urban studies and urban policy, and for all the social sciences that address racial inequality, gentrification and displacement.
Tom Angotti
Professor Emeritus, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY
If you want to understand Detroit in all its turbulence and spirit, you need go no farther than this film. Pam Sporn's meticulous archival research and loving, artistic storytelling shed essential light on her hometown's energies and injustices and on the resistance and renewal that live in the heart of its people. Wendell Watkins is an Everyman whose daily pilgrimage shows how deeply each of us is connected, to the forces of history and to one another.
Dr. Terry Blackhawk
Founder InsideOut Literary Arts Project, author of The Light Between and Escape Artist.
Walk with Wendell Watkins. Consider Detroit's history through the eyes of a postman with thirty years on the job. DETROIT 48202 engages the economic rise of the motor city and the politics of labor organizing, police harassment, race riots, abandonment, bankruptcy, and gentrification. Pam Sporn's award-winning film is sure to provoke lively class discussions.
Dolores Hayden
Professor Emerita, Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University
A comprehensive history book of Detroit comes to life in Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route. Compelling personal interviews provide Sporn the pathway to the city's history, all of which unravels in stunning, rarely seen archival footage.
Herb Boyd
Author of Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination

Awards and Screenings

Broadcast, America ReFramed (PBS World)
Detroit Free Press Film Festival, 2018
Workers Unite Film Festival, Special Jury Award, 2018
Color of Conversation Film Series, AFI Silver Theater, Silver Spring, MD, 2018
National Association of Letter Carriers Convention, 2018
Black Harvest Film Festival, Honorable Mention-Best Documentary Feature, 2018
Documentary Forum, City College of NY, 2018
Detroit Historical Museum, 2019
Capital City Film Festival, 2019
Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College, 2019
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, 2019
Idlewild International Film Festival, 2019
On Screen/In Person Film Tour - Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, 2019
Santiago Alvarez International Documentary Festival - Special Jury Award, 2020
Oral History Association Annual Conference, 2020
Finalist, 2020 Nat'l Assoc. of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award, 2020
Better Cities Film Festival - Best of Festival, 2020
InLight Human Rights Film Festival, 2022

Director Commentary

Coming of age in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s gave me a specific and very special view on race and racism, unions, and social justice movements. I have known my main protagonist Wendell Watkins since 1972 when we were fellow student activists at Cass Technical High School.

When I returned to Detroit in 2009, after not living in the city for a number of years, I was stunned by the devastation I witnessed and had many questions about what happened to the jobs, the people, and the buildings. It felt natural to turn to Wendell, a quintessential storyteller, to look for answers. That’s how Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route was born.

My relationship with Wendell opened doors for me to develop ties with residents along his postal route, several of whom are in the film. Other long-term friends in Detroit connected me to invaluable sources of information, scholars, and activists who have helped tell this story.

The approach I took to making Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route flowed from my history with the city and my ties to Wendell. I stayed “close to the ground,” doing most of the cinematography as I followed Wendell on his route. Wendell lead me to the customers he thought had the most interesting stories to share about the history of Detroit and/or their current activism. My historical and archival research was guided by the stories Wendell and his customers shared. Interviews with scholars and journalists were used judiciously in order to foreground the voices of these mostly black Detroiters.

Music! For starters I turned to guitarist A. Spencer Barefield, fellow Cass Technical High School alum and a center of Detroit’s jazz scene. His “Soul Steppin’ Through the Fabulous Ruins” became the theme song of the film. I then reached out to two other Detroit based musicians-drummer Bob White, of Hastings Street Blues Band, and folksinger Josh White, Jr., whose contributions deepened the score thematically.

Throughout the production process I kept close contact with the film’s subjects, inviting them to work-in- progress showings and eliciting their feedback in rough- cut screenings. I never wanted to parachute in and take away footage. I began a process of discovery with Wendell and his people, and the resulting film is my love letter to Detroit.

Features and Languages

Film Features

  • Audio Description
  • Closed Captioning
  • All4Access
  • Subtitles
  • Resources for Educators

Subtitle/Caption Languages

  • English
  • Spanish

Promotional Material

Promotional Stills

Resources for Educators

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