July 2, 2025
Detroit Golf Membership’s first Black girl president comes from a robust lineage of trailblazing leaders.
Meet Michele Samuels, the primary Black girl to be named “Madame President” of the celebrated Detroit Golf Membership.
Carrying the legacy of an escaped slave who helped lead the 1851 Christiana Riot and served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Samuels feels “humbled” by the influence her trailblazing function has on the golf membership and the general group.
“I sat in a session the opposite day that Rocket placed on concerning the historical past of Black golf in Detroit, and that actually gave me a powerful perspective about the place Black individuals in Detroit have been form of denied entry to membership in golf equipment,” Samuels advised the Detroit Free Press at DGC’s 2025 Rocket Traditional.
Her historic title on the coveted golf membership follows her retirement in January as senior VP, common auditor, and compliance officer at Blue Cross Blue Protect of Michigan, the place she labored for 35 years. Samuels credit a lot of her skilled success to the management and dedication she believes she inherited from her great-great-grandfather, William Parker, an escaped enslaved particular person and key determine within the Christiana Riot of Sept. 11, 1851.
Parker and his spouse, Eliza, have been identified for sheltering escaped enslaved individuals and performed a key function in resisting slave catchers in the course of the Christiana Riot, which led to the loss of life of a slave proprietor. Parker later chronicled the expertise in an 1866 essay for The Atlantic titled “The Freedman’s Story.”
After fleeing to Canada through New York, he settled along with his household in Buxton, Ontario, simply 50 miles east of Detroit, the place he served as a conductor and station grasp on the Underground Railroad. It’s a deep and wealthy historical past that his great-great-granddaughter has utilized in her climb up the company ladder.
“After I realized about it, I did draw lots of inspiration from it,” she stated. “It defined so much about my who I’m, and why I’m at all times preventing for one thing and main.”
Now, greater than a decade after becoming a member of the Detroit Golf Membership in 2012, Samuels has made historical past as the membership’s first Black girl president since its founding in 1899. A passionate golfer and bike fanatic, she considers it a deep honor to guide in an area her ancestors as soon as needed to struggle to even enter.
“Love the atmosphere, love the range of the membership,” she stated. “It’s very distinctive. I’ve at all times been a supporter of Detroit, and to have the ability to a part of a golf membership that’s centered within the metropolis of Detroit is simply an honor.”
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