Desiree Cooper, a 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, is the editor of the 2026 anthology Black Summers: Growing Up in Urban Outdoors.
She started the anthology after discovering the forgotten civil rights story of Sarah Ray, a black teenager who was removed from the segregated Boblo Boats in Detroit, but won a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1948, granting African American families the right to be on the boats. This enabled a cherished Detroit summer tradition tied to Boblo Island in the Detroit River. Cooper recruited 28 Detroit writers, including teenagers, to reflect on summertime “urban outdoors” experiences and how race shapes them, including surprises like Detroit’s “swimmobiles,” shipping-container pools filled with hydrant water that replaced traditional pools when recreation resources declined.
Cooper discusses childhood joy, persistent racism, parents’ efforts, and redefining city nature as sanctuary, as well as describing her flash fiction collection Know the Mother, very short stories about women and expectations of motherhood.
Cooper will appear with the Columbus Library Author series on August 15 at the Driving Park branch
