Joann Castle

Joann Castle is a lifelong Detroiter and political activist. She was the mother of six young children when she became involved in the radical Catholic movement for racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s. Against the incendiary backdrop of the 1967 Detroit insurrection and its aftermath, Castle invested in community work, foster care, and co-founded Hourglass, a group which lobbied the Catholic Church to support black self-determination. By 1968, she was an active...See more

Joann Castle is a lifelong Detroiter and political activist. She was the mother of six young children when she became involved in the radical Catholic movement for racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s. Against the incendiary backdrop of the 1967 Detroit insurrection and its aftermath, Castle invested in community work, foster care, and co-founded Hourglass, a group which lobbied the Catholic Church to support black self-determination. By 1968, she was an active member of the Ad-Hoc Action Group struggling against police brutality and later joined the Motor City Labor League, a radical left organization. In the early '70s, she co-founded the unprecedented Control, Conflict & Change Book Club which united blacks and whites in collective consciousness raising and political action. See less