It may have been black Detroit’s defining moment. The year was 1963. “The same basic, underlying causes for the disturbance (1943 Detroit race riot) are still present,” declared the Rev. C.L. Franklin, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church. “The difference now will be the way our protests and dissatisfaction will be known.” Medgar Evers, a leading NAACP official in Mississippi, had been assassinated just 11 days prior. Severe housing discrimination and rampant police brutality were as prevalent in Detroit in 1963 as they were when the race riot occurred here in 1943. Couple that with the fact that a group of black leaders believed that the Detroit Branch NAACP wasn’t active enough in fighting local racism, a set of men: Benjamin McFall, a mortician and funeral home owner; Rev. Franklin; the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, pastor of Central Congregational Church; and community activist and real estate broker James Del Rio held a community meeting on May 17, 1963. From that meeting, the Detroit Council for Human Rights was formed. The new organization’s first effort: The June 23, 1963 “Walk to Freedom.” The “Walk to Freedom” featured the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as he first delivered his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech to a packed COBO Arena. More than 125,000 attended the peaceful demonstration. “At the march, I watched the procession from the roof of Cobo Hall,” Arthur L. Johnson, then Detroit NAACP executive secretary, would write more than 30 years later. “It was a breathtaking experience and tears of joy welled up in my eyes. I believed that every person who marched that day felt that they were making strides toward the African-American hope and determination to be free.” Franklin joined the ancestors on this day in 1984.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 21:53:20 +0000
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