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| Affiliation | Nonpartisan |
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| Name | Erma Henderson |
| Address |
Detroit, Michigan , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
August 20, 1917
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| Died | December 14, 2009
(92 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Feb 26, 2024 05:24am |
| Tags |
Black -
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| Info | Erma Henderson has often been acclaimed as Detroit’s most powerful woman. In 1972 she became the first black woman to serve on Detroit’s City Council. She went on to serve sixteen years, twelve as council president. As a social worker, Erma Henderson’s true commitment to the people she serves is evident. Her many awards are indicative of her gifted leadership as a coalition builder. Beloved and respected, she has been honored by education, civil rights, feminist, business, religious, and political groups across the state and nation. “She teaches people,” says one of her Common Council colleagues. “She uses the coalitions as a training basis for community people who have felt powerless and shows them they are powerful.”
In 1975 Erma Henderson organized the Michigan Statewide Coalition Against Redlining and she took on the state’s banking and insurance interests. These efforts were directly responsible for the State’s Anti-Redlining law, one of the most comprehensive in the nation today.
Henderson also organized the Women’s Conference of Concerns, a coalition of individuals and organizations representing 250,000 women at its peak, who work to improve the quality of city life for all people. She organized Women in Municipal Government in Michigan and nationally, bringing together women in city governments from all over the nation to work in unison.
As Michigan’s own ambassador for peace and racial harmony, she does not falter in the face of controversy, whether addressing the World Peace Council on disarmament in Helsinki, speaking out against apartheid at the United Nations, attending a Presidential briefing on the Panama Canal, participating in international women’s conferences in Mexico City or Nairobi, touring the island country of Grenada, or leading a delegation of Council colleagues to meet with sister-city counterparts in Germany, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.
In July 1982, Erma Henderson held an unprecedented four-day International Trade Conference for the Michigan Chapter of the Continental African Chamber of Commerce, bringing together Ambassadors and Ministers of Finance from 23 African nations to effectuate trade packages. Henderson attended the historic installation of the Right Reverend Desmond Tutu as Archbishop of South Africa in 1986.
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