Detroit is Different

“I didn’t want to be any attorney. I wanted to be a second chance attorney for our people,” Jade Mathis shares in a Detroit is Different conversation that moves from Black Bottom ancestry to courtroom advocacy and City Hall leadership. Jade’s Detroit story begins with grandparents who migrated from Little Rock and Tuscaloosa during the Great Migration, met in Black Bottom, and built family roots on Dexter and Philadelphia, where her grandmother gardened, fed neighborhood children, and kept beauty alive on the block. Jade carries that same community care into her legal journey. After illness shifted her path from journalism to law, Jade pushed through LSAT setbacks, law school rejection, and taking the bar six times before becoming the attorney she promised God she would be. Her work included the Project Clean Slate, expungements, NAACP service, GED tutoring, and civil rights cases with Attorney Ben Crump traveling the nation, representing families struggling from police killings and fighting through litigation, protest, and grief. Now leading Detroit’s Civil Rights, Inclusion & Opportunity Department, CRIO, Jade brings those lessons home: clean records, recognize grassroots leadership, defend rights, and make government answer to the people’s future. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“His story had to be told” is the kind of line that stops you in your tracks, and in this powerful Detroit is Different conversation, Shushanna Shakur brings that truth to life with love, clarity, and revolutionary purpose. As the sister of the legendary Chokwe Lumumba, author of Memories of My Revolutionary Brother: Chokwe Lumumba, and Founder and Director of Heritage Youth Program, Shushanna reflects on the pain of losing her brother, the urgency of preserving his story, and the responsibility of telling it from the view of someone who had “a front row seat in his life.” She shares how, immediately after his passing, she knew “who better than me could tell the story,” grounding the interview in family, movement history, and the healing power of writing. This episode is more than remembrance—it is a lesson on grief, political legacy, and why our stories must be documented by the people who lived them. For Detroit, for Black freedom struggles, and for future generations building community, this conversation reminds us that memory is organizing, storytelling is protection, and legacy is a living responsibility. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co

“Land is wealth,” and in Detroit that truth hits different. In this powerful Detroit is Different conversation, Attorney Anthony Adams joins Khary Frazier to break down what home ownership really means in Detroit today—not just living in a house, but having “legal title to the property,” clear paperwork, and the protection to hold on to what our families worked for. Adams explains how Detroit went from a city rooted in Black homeownership to one facing what he calls an “economic tsunami,” where overassessment, foreclosure, land contracts, and fraudulent deeds have put generations of Detroiters at risk. He makes deed fraud plain: “someone who has no claim of interest in a property gets possession of a property and transfers it to someone else,” often leaving families shocked to learn a home has been stolen on paper. This episode is essential listening for anybody buying, inheriting, protecting, or fighting for a house in Detroit, as Adams lays out why title work matters, why “you can’t get title from someone who’s never owned it,” and what families must do right now to defend their legacy. From elders in nursing homes to homes passed down without clear deeds, this is a deep, practical, and urgent conversation about wealth, vigilance, and community survival. The past taught Detroit that homeownership builds stability; this episode shows how protecting it shapes our future. Attorney Anthony Adams practices at Marine Adams Law PC, marineadamslawpc.com, (313) 961-5535. Detroit is Different is a podcast hosted by Khary Frazier covering people adding to the culture of an American Classic city. Visit www.detroitisdifferent.com to hear, see and experience more of what makes Detroit different. Follow, like, share, and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Sticher. Comment, suggest and connect with the podcast by emailing info@detroitisdifferent.com Find out more at https://detroit-is-different.pinecast.co