The evocative quotation in the title comes from Dr. Benjamin Wilson, professor of history at Western Michigan University, who in 2002 wrote Black Eden: The Idlewild Community. “R and R from racism” was the way Benjamin Wilson put it. Wilson, who holds a doctorate in history, is an associate professor in black Americana studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. He has done considerable research on Idlewild’s storied past. It was a refuge from bigotry, he said. “You couldn’t go...

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