Author: Alan Glenn

The musician Gordon Lightfoot is returning to Ann Arbor on Sept. 21 to perform at the Michigan Theater. He first performed here almost 45 years ago, under very different circumstances. [Full Story]

Alan Glenn interviews Owen Gleiberman, an Entertainment Weekly film critic who grew up in Ann Arbor. Gleiberman reflects on what it was like to grow up in the countercultural milieu of Ann Arbor in the late ’60s and early ’70s, how that experience influenced his career as a film critic, and his thoughts and hopes on the future of journalism. [Full Story]

Forty years ago, a protest by the Black Action Movement disrupted the University of Michigan campus for several days, pushing for reforms that would increase support for minority students. Though the protest nearly closed down the campus, it never escalated to violence – thanks to the restraint of BAM leaders and UM president Robben Fleming. [Full Story]

Former student radicals from 1960s and ’70s remember UM president Robben Fleming, who led the university through one of its most turbulent eras. Fleming died in Ann Arbor on Jan. 11, 2010 at age 93. [Full Story]

What brought John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Ann Arbor 38 years ago? Alan Glenn looks back on the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, an event that drew thousands to Crisler Arena. [Full Story]

Ernie Harburg, a co-owner of Ann Arbor’s Del Rio, has written a memoir about that iconic bar. Alan Glenn takes a look at “Liberty, Equality, Consensus and All That Jazz at the Del Rio Bar” and at what the Del meant to Ann Arbor. [Full Story]

An interview with David Alan Grier reveals the Ann Arbor inspiration for one of his “In Living Color” characters. The actor/comedian was in town on Oct. 18 to promote his new book, “Barack Like Me.” [Full Story]

How was the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival better than Woodstock? Alan Glenn takes an in-depth look at this iconic event, tracing its triumphs and struggles over the past 40 years. [Full Story]

For four nights in June of 1969, the normally sleepy summertime streets of Ann Arbor were violently awoken by a series of violent and occasionally bloody clashes on South University between police and a motley crowd of hippies, radicals, teenagers, university students, and town rowdies. [Full Story]

Alan Glenn writes about Ann Arbor’s connection to the first Earth Day, and the impact that local student activists had in the early days of the environmental movement. [Full Story]