If Charles McGee gave Detroit its visual rhythm, Emily T. Gail provided it with a voice, a battle cry, a bumper sticker mantra:

“Say Nice Things About Detroit.”

During a time when Detroit was being laughed off by headlines and abandoned by industry, Gail picked up a megaphone and said:

“No… we’re proud. And we’re celebrating. ”

Emily T. Gail was neither a politician nor a household name.

Quite the contrary, she was a tennis professional with a department store in the Cass Corridor, a shining example of civic spirit armed with an optimism sharp enough to cut through anyone’s cynicism.

Her sports store in downtown Detroit became a mecca for tennis players and runners, as well as anyone else who wanted to see the city prosper.

During the 1970s, she launched the very first downtown road race: Emily’s Run Through the City, a 10K celebration of Detroit’s resilient spirit.

At one point she even joined forces with the Detroit Tigers to create T-shirts featuring their signature slogan.

The players wore them, and the press took notice.

She wasn’t merely trying to sell hope.

She was hope.

And folks bought in.

Gail’s Detroit wasn’t defined by its crime, statistics, or vacancy rates.

It was marked by possibility.

She led jogging tours through downtown before downtown had joggers, and she gave interviews to media outlets that were more interested in the collapse than the comeback, flipping the narrative with her clever slogan.

It was all part of a bigger undertaking: to rewrite the narrative of a city that had long fed on negative headlines.

Gail relocated to Hawaii in the 1980s, where she still resides today.

That said, she never stopped singing the praises of Detroit.

She grew to be a beloved broadcaster as well as a community organizer in Kona, all while still finding ways to uplift her hometown up from a distance.

In fact, Emily has often said that she sees parallels between the spirit of Detroit and the soul of Hawaii: resilience, reinvention, and reverence.

She frequently returns to Detroit on trips, and her legacy still resonates today in civic revivalists, community gardeners, street artists, and neighborhood rebranding efforts.

Emily T. Gail was a woman with a slogan long before hashtags and viral Tik Tok city pride campaigns defined Detroit.

She told people to say nice things as protection, not just for good PR:

Protection against shame, abandonment, forgetting.

She did not simply ask the city to love itself.

She reminded it how.

Gail’s signature slogan is not merely a slogan.

It’s a powerful spell.

A challenge to every Detroiter and outsider who wanted to write the city off.

It did not disregard the city’s pain – it simply reframed it.

Because it isn’t a lie to say nice things.

It’s a concerted effort to choose – again and again – to see the entire story, not just the bad parts.

And as far as stories go, Gail’s is a pivotal part of Detroit’s history.

Thanks to her work, Detroiters were not simply surviving.

They were speaking kindly of themselves and their city, and through that…manifesting a brighter future.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: August 18, 2025