"Me and the misses moved to Michigan after the Civil War. I've been workin' as a laborer ever since -- makin' my way, building roads, cuttin' down trees, hauling bricks for new buildings. If the work's out there, I can do it. But I never know what I'm going to make from day to day. Just depends on the job."
-Isaac Brown, Black male, age 47
Photo captions: Road construction, circa 1895 (Library of Congress collections); Advertising and bag from the Kalamazoo Laundry Company (KVM collections); Undergrounf bricklaying, circa 1890s (unidentified source).
To find more historic photographs and artifacts related to African Americans history in Kalamazoo, visit KVM's searchable collections database.