Niles resident Pat Gresham did not know it until recently, but there was a piece of history sitting on her bookshelf for many years.

The Michigan Manual of Freedom’s Progress, which was compiled in 1915, includes biographies of black landowners and professionals, including several citizens from Niles.

It was passed down to Gresham from her mother, Alice Findley Griffin, when Griffin died in 1988.

Gresham only realized the significance of the book after the Niles History Center began working on a project to chronicle the stories of African-Americans in Niles from the 1850s to the present.

A visiting historian mentioned the book, turning on a light bulb in the head of Gresham, who went home to find it on her bookshelf.

“I just thought it was an old book,” said Gresham, who graduated from Niles High School in 1957. “I didn’t know what I had. I brought it down and everybody started going nuts.”

Information from the book Gresham found — and her own stories of growing up as an African-American in Niles in the mid 1900s — will be used as part of the Niles History Center’s project, “Profiles and Portraits: African-Americans in Niles’ Past, Present and Future.”

Christina Arseneau, director of the history center, announced last week that the history center received a $24,000 grant to complete the project, with the goal of shining a light on Niles’ largely untold history of African Americans.

Important to the success of the project, Arseneau said, will be getting stories and documents from the Niles community, much like the manual Gresham found on her bookshelf.

“Right now these stories are not being told… What other kinds of things can we learn about the community?” she said.

In addition to providing the manual, Gresham talked about growing up in what she calls the “Dickereel Neighborhood,” which she said encompassed German, Italian, African-American and Caucasian families living in an area from 12th Street to Fifth Street on Lake Street.

Gresham said the residents of the neighborhood in the mid-1900s got along wonderfully despite their different ethnicities and backgrounds.

“If someone was sick, everyone would take a dish to that house and try to help them,” she said.

Areseneau said stories like Gresham’s are important in painting a full picture of what it was like to be an African-American in Niles.

The supportive nature of the neighborhood Gresham talked about, Arseneau said, is consistent with what is known of Niles’ history.

Arseneau said Niles appears to have been more supportive of African-Americans in the pre-Civil War era than many other communities at the time, evidenced in what is known as the Ferry Street Corridor on the city’s northeast side that included a school (presently the Ferry Street Resource Center), church (now Mount Calvary Baptist Church) and the John W. More Lodge, which was the state’s first African-American Masonic Lodge.

The three institutions were considered a support system for the African-Americans who arrived in Niles via the Underground Railroad and other means.

“With those kinds of social structures in place people felt safe and that they had a sense of belonging,” Arseneau said.

Arseneau said she would love to be able to tell more of that story and why Niles appeared to be ahead of its time in its support of African-Americans in the pre-Civil War era.

“There is something special about the reason that happened in Niles moreso than in other communities,” she said. “I think there are lessons we can learn from the past with these communities and neighborhoods helping each other. It seems like we don’t have a lot of that anymore.”

In addition to using community input for the project, the history center will work with the Niles District Library, area churches, local schools and the John W. More Lodge. It will also be getting assistance with the Civil Rights Heritage Center at Indiana University, South Bend.

Arseneau said three things would come from the project:

• A digital resource database of interviews and information about African-American history in Niles

• An exhibit on Niles’ African-American history at the Niles History Center

• And a walking tour of important African-American historical sites in Niles

Anyone wanting to contribute to the project is encouraged to contact Arseneau at the Niles History Center at (269) 845-4054 or by email at carseneau@nilesmi.org.

The grant for the project comes from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.