Detroit Walk to Freedom
| Walk to Freedom | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Civil Rights Movement | |
| Date | June 23, 1963 |
| Location | Adelaide Street, Woodward Avenue and Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan |
| Causes |
|
| Result |
|
The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on June 23, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more and was known as "the largest civil rights demonstration in the nation's history" up to that date.
Various ministers and leaders of local and national organizations including the Mayor of Detroit were in attendance and gave speeches. Among them was Martin Luther King Jr. who after the Walk to Freedom March gave an impassioned speech. It was a precursor to his famous "I Have a Dream" speech given weeks later in Washington, D.C.. The march itself was, to King and his supporters, partly a practice run of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Due to the greater size of the March on Washington, the Detroit Walk to Freedom has been somewhat lost to obscurity outside of local Detroit history. At the time, Dr. King called it “one of the most wonderful things that has happened in America.”
Reverend Clarence L. Franklin and Reverend Albert Cleage were Civil Rights leaders who, although they had very different viewpoints and methods of tackling injustice, came together and proposed the idea of having a large march or demonstration in Detroit. Together along with other organizers, they formed the Detroit Council for Human Rights which would be the organization that would actually put on the Walk to Freedom march. Cleage originally wanted the march to be all black and led by backs only; however, the local Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was prepared to not support the march and even boycott it if the DCHR did not include some local white leaders in the march. Although the march was open to all, the vast majority that came to the march were African-American, but there were several prominent whites, such as the Mayor of Detroit Jerome Cavanagh, who joined in leading the march or otherwise showed their support.
...
Wikipedia