As part of the great migration of southern blacks to the north, Sunnie Wilson came to Detroit from South Carolina after graduating from college, and soon became a pillar in the local music industry. He started out as a song and dance performer, but found his niche as a local promoter of boxing and musical acts.
Part oral history, memoir, and biography, Toast of the Town draws from hundreds of hours of taped conversations between Sunnie Wilson and John Cohassey, as Wilson reflected on the changes in Detroit over the last sixty years. Supported by extensive research, Wilson's reminiscence is complemented by photographs from his own collection, which capture the spirit of the times. An influential insider's perspective, Toast of the Town fills a void in the documented history of Detroit's black business and entertainment community from the 1920s to the present.
Length: 183 pages.
Reviews
Why Sunnie Wilson was the Toast of the Town
I hope that young people will understand from this book the struggle was not just down South, it was here too”—Sunnie Wilson, author, Toast of the Town.
Sunnie Wilson—aptly described by Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer as Detroit’s “Mr. Entertainment”—dropped many famous names in his engaging autobiography: Joe Louis, Louis Armstrong, Della Reese, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Nat King Cole, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson.
When actor-singer Robeson, blacklisted as a Communist, made a controversial appearance in 1949 at Wilson’s Forest Club, a popular nightspot, the man in charge of security was none other than Coleman Young. The future mayor wore a steel helmet.
Such are the vignettes of Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson, published by Wayne State University. The book written with the assistance of John Cohassey, is as much a reflection of the personality of Detroit as it is about the life of businessman-philanthropist Wilson, a promoter of sports, entertainment, and civil rights.
At a Tuesday ceremony at the state Capitol, Wilson’s book was announced as one the recommended 15 “Read Michigan” selections of the May 15-22 celebration of the 46th annual Michigan Week.
The honor came about two months after Wilson’s death at the age of 90. Gone too, are Wilson’s establishments, including the Forest Club and the Mark Twain Hotel, on Garfield near Woodward Avenue, that he bought in 1943 to accommodate the black entertainers who were barred from white-only hotels.
In a Detroit News interview when the book was released, Wilson expressed hope that it would help promote better understanding of Detroit’s heritage. It should.
-----George Weeks, Detroit News, May 13, 1998
At 89 years of age, Sunnie Wilson has seen a lot of Detroit since he arrived in 1927. Together with John Cohassey he has written a book that is part memoir and part biography. Cohassey has written the chapter introductions, but my guess is that he is also responsible for adding factual material about people and places that is woven into Wilson’s recollections. . . .
Wilson has a lot to say about the music business in Detroit. . . . We get a good look at the gangsters who frequented Detroit’s night world at the time, but Wilson is discreet not to mention too many names. The gangsters come in all ethnicities and Wilson tells a familiar story when he emphasizes how businesslike they were. Interestingly, Italian and Jewish gangs had limited success in penetrating much of Paradise Valley, black Detroit’s entertainment center, where money from numbers financed many clubs. . . .
Now that Sunnie Wilson has spoken, let us hope that others will be inspired to share their memories of those days that should not be forgotten.
----Lars Bjorn (University of Michigan professor of Sociology), Detroit Jazz, 1998
Toast of the Town : The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson " I was there. The stories are all true, Sunnie was exactly that: "sunnie", always a smile and ever dapper, he was the consumate host. The Mark Twain Hotel was a great place to meet the most famous jazz musicians in informal settings while they lounged or rehearsed. As a young, white broadcast engineer traveling with a national jazz radio program, I must say the Hotel was more like a home away from home than a Hotel. I stayed in room 38. Good times. Great book.”
----thriftbooks.com
Toast of the Town : The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson " "Anyone remotely active in the social or political life of Detroit knew Sunnie Wilson . . . ."[Wilson's] book proved to be an excellent, social, political, economic and entertainment history of the African American community in Detroit during an unique era. Interesting and intricate details are given about Paradise Valley and Black Bottom.. . . . The book is well worth reading for young and old; for the young it's a social history and for the old, a fun trip down memory lane.”
----Gershwin A. Drain, Wayne County Third Judicial Court Judge.
"This is not only the life and times of Sunnie Wilson, it is the story of how one person with interest and caring can make a difference not only in the City of Detroit, but every person he came in contact with. It is also one of the most moving narratives of the relationship between the races that I have encountered in quite a while. I know that you will come away with a feeling that you now have made a new friend."
----Ed Smith
United News Service, February 1998