Supreme Intentions

Send us Fan MailOur story begins not with sequins but with a housing project.Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard both grew up in Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass projects, one of the first federally funded housing developments for Black families. Diana Ross, who grew up nearby, joined that same orbit.Detroit in the 1950s and early 60s was a complex place:Automobile money and factory work.Northern promise and stubborn segregation.Church choirs, street-corner harmonies, jazz clubs, rhythm & blues, gospel pouring out of radios.Music wasn’t a luxury; it was a language.The three girls—at first part of a broader group of friends—found each other through that language. They called themselves The Primettes, designed as the “girl group” counterpart to a rising male group called The Primes (who would evolve into The Temptations).Support the showThank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.