Father, son make history with side-by-side exhibits at Detroit museum

Eleazar-Yisrael Smith, 10, left, is part of the "Stories in Stereo" current exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum as his father, Emmanuel Smith, 43, has an installation right next door where they are standing with his regional Emmy trophies for his Mr. E in the D productions. The two were photographed together at the museum on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024.

For the first time in the Detroit Historical Museum’s nearly 100-year history, a father and a son are being featured in two separate but adjacent exhibits.

Emmanuel Smith is one out of 34 Black entrepreneurs featured in the museum’s “The Hustle: Detroit’s Unsung Entrepreneurs” exhibit, while his 10-year-old son, Eleazar-Yisrael Smith, is one of 82 fifth graders with an audio story featured in the “Stories in Stereo: Voices of Detroit Students” exhibit.

The exhibits sit beside each other in the Auditorium Showplace and Wrigley Hall, offering visitors the chance to casually stroll from parent to child, possibly without discerning the connection between the two.

In fact, the relationship almost went unnoticed by the museum.

The Detroit Historical Society chief strategy and marketing officer Rebecca Salminen-Witt was talking to the program manager of 826michigan, the K-12 writing program that guided the students in their storytelling journeys, who mentioned that one of their featured students talked about how his father was already in the museum.

From her work at the Detroit Historical Museum, Salminen-Witt pieced the puzzle together until the picture became clear: The Smiths, father and son, were being featured in two different exhibits simultaneously.

“I told Eleazar … ‘This is something that’s going to go down in history for you and your family,’ ” said Smith. “This is like legacy. Every time you drive past the Detroit Historical Museum, you’re going to be the grandfather that’s like, ‘Hey! Your dad was in this museum, and matter of fact, your grandad was in the museum, too.’ This is family history for us now, in the Historical Museum.”

While you may not guess the relation by just a glimpse at their portraits, the family values are unmistakable.

Amid authors and artists, shopkeepers and salon owners, scientists and nonprofit-starters — even a bounce house business, a bakery devoted only to sweet potato byproducts, and a lemonade stand that made it off the sidewalk into Detroit shops — Emmanuel “Mr. E in the D” Smith is a musician with a more colorful repertoire.

Aside from his primary job as the Dean of Culture at University Preparatory Academy – Ellen Thompson, Mr. E produces educational hip-hop music for children.

His side gig started in 2014 with “Math Mixtape: Volume I,” after he noticed that the students he was substitute teaching were struggling with their multiplication tables.

Several years later, the city of Detroit helped to transform Mr. E in the D into a public access television show and subsequently earning him two regional Emmy awards for its impact.

“There’s a learning component but there’s also an imagination component about creating things as a kid,” said Smith. “This was always a low-key thing for me, like, ‘Man, when I get older, I want to create something like this.’ But then as my kids were born and we were finding different things and creating different songs in the house, it became like, ‘Man, I really want to create something that they could watch, or even more so, that they could be a part of.’ “

Following his father’s claim to fame, the young Smith’s writing and storytelling abilities are on display in the adjacent exhibit.

Surrounded by a slew of other stories from University Prep’s Mark Murray about family traditions, some fictionalized and some pure nonfiction, Eleazar tells the story of an ordinary game of hide-and-seek that became an extraordinary memory when his cousin came to visit.

“My little cousin, I don’t really get to see her a lot, I like just making memories with her so I wrote a story about it, so it could be just like that: a good memory,” he said about his audio story.

So, through a combination of hard work and fate, father and son’s tales have come together side by side.

“It blew my mind just to be a part of “The Hustle” exhibit. … And then a few months later, to have my son just a few feet away in the same museum being featured off of the work that he’s done. … We’re a museum family … that’s our pastime, we love to do that as family time, so to walk in a museum and to see us in the museum is wild,” said Smith.

While their accounts serve as a testament to their family values, together, their stories also contribute to the mosaic of the modern Detroiter experience, captured by the museum in color and portraiture.

“I believe they said they are the first museum to do something like this; they’re the first historical museum to highlight their residents in the way that they have done,” said Smith. “It speaks volumes to how the city of Detroit is the city of innovation. … From music to entertainment to science, we’re the first, and the world is watching us.”