Phillip Pierce doesn’t see his recent election as secretary of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission as a moment to shine a spotlight on himself. Instead, he views it as an opportunity to continue to push forward a broader, overdue conversation about the role Black entrepreneurs, workers, and leaders have played in shaping Mackinac Island, one of Michigan’s most treasured tourist destinations.

Pierce, a longtime Grosse Pointe Shores resident and co-founder of Pierce, Monroe & Associates, was appointed to the commission by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2019. At that time, he became the first African American to serve on the commission since its creation in 1895. This May, his fellow commissioners unanimously voted him into the secretary’s seat, making him not only the first Black commission

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