In addition, the community center at the complex is now named after Jean Carlberg — Bunyan Bryant’s widow, longtime housing advocate and former Ann Arbor City Councilmember.
Avalon Housing’s Arbordale Apartments is now the Bunyan Bryant Apartments, in honor of the late professor and activist whose denial of an apartment at the complex in the early 1960s by the landlord at the time became a flashpoint in the local fight for fair housing.
Bryant was part of a group that successfully advocated for a fair housing ordinance in Ann Arbor in 1963, so when he was looking for an apartment the very next year, racial discrimination was not what he anticipated.
“When Bunyan applied to sublet an apartment at Arbordale Manor, he knew it was available and fully expected to be able to sublet it, because the ordinance was in place to prevent
discrimination,” recalled his widow, fellow activist and former Ann Arbor City Councilmember Jean Carlberg. “When he was told no, nothing was available, he knew that was wrong.”
Bryant, Carlberg and the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE), a nonviolent, direct action civil
rights organization, set up a test – they separately sent a white woman, a white man, and a
Black man to rent an apartment. The Black man was the only one denied a spot.
The activists brought the case to the city’s Human Rights Commission under its antidiscrimination housing ordinance, and it eventually went to the Michigan Supreme Court, helping pave the way for bans on housing discrimination across the state.
Avalon Housing took ownership of the apartments in 1998.
“We know that African American people still face housing discrimination, and that is one reason they are disproportionately represented in the homeless population. One of Avalon’s goals has always been to work to expose and correct that history, and that’s why recognizing Bunyan is so important to us,” said Michael Appel, one of Avalon’s co-founders and a real estate development staff person for the agency. “By honoring Dr. Bryant, we acknowledge the effort that was required to make housing discrimination illegal. And we also pledge to continue his lifelong work of addressing injustice — and there’s no doubt we have more work to do.”
Bryant was born in Little Rock, AR, during segregation, and attended an all-black school as a child. He was the first member of his family to attend college and graduate school. As a professor of environmental justice studies, he was also the first Black faculty member at the University of Michigan Department of Natural Resources (now known as the School for Environment and Sustainability). During his career in environmental studies, he helped transform the field to focus on environmental justice, to change the corporate and governmental policies which resulted in disproportionate harmful environmental impacts on poor and minority populations.
Carlberg said the incident at Arbordale reinforced Bryant’s dedication to social justice: “The blatant discrimination was not academic, it was personal; he had worked hard to go to college, to get a degree in social work to help his community and be a productive community member, and yet the rental community believed it had a right to discriminate. The experience became part of his efforts to organize, and to develop new and effective strategies to eliminate discrimination in all its forms.”
The University of Michigan held the mortgage to Arbordale Manor at the time, and Carlberg said they were told by university officials that nothing could be done.
“Bunyan described that situation as a double insult, he paid tuition to UM, UM was using his dollars to buy a mortgage and then discriminate against him,” Carlberg said.
In his memoir, Educator and Activist: My Life and Times in the Quest for Environmental Justice, Bryant wrote, “This was the most radicalizing event in my life.”
While Bryant never did move into Arbordale, it officially became the Bunyan Bryant Apartments on Oct. 24, 2024 at a ceremony at the complex. The name change comes after consultation with residents, the Avalon Board of Directors, and Carlberg. Bryant himself died in March 2024 at the age of 89, but knew about plans for the renaming before his death.
Carlberg said he was “totally surprised and very gratified” to hear about the renaming proposal.
“Progress has been made as it relates to housing discrimination, but the fight for housing justice is far from over, locally or nationally,” said Avalon Executive Director Aaron Cooper. “We want everyone who passes by the Bunyan Bryant Apartments to know we here at Avalon honor his struggle for equality in housing, which we consider a human right for all.”
The pictures below were provided courtesy of Jean Carlberg, the Ann Arbor District Library, the Ann Arbor News, and Avalon Housing.
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