The Living Room is our on-going storytelling series produced by Allison Downey and Zak Rosen. Today's show: Beyond the Dream, 50 years later.
August 28th marks the 50th anniversary of what might be the most celebrated political gathering in our nation's history. Close to a quarter of a million people poured onto the Washington Mall to show their solidarity with the growing Civil Rights Movement. It was The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The March might be best known as the venue where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his now iconic I Have a Dream Speech.
But he didn't debut the speech in Washington D.C.
King gave an earlier version of his now famous speech in Detroit, on June 23rd of 1963. Some Detroiters contend that the events of that weekend are just as relevant, if not more so, than the March on Washington.
The Detroit Walk to Freedom was organized by the The Detroit Council for Human Rights. It was conceived as a way to commemorate the race riot that took place in the city 20 years earlier. But it was also an event to protest the current state of race and economic relations both in the urban north and the American south.
Living Room Producer Zak Rosen spoke with a handful of Detroiters who were at the gathering in June of '63.
For more information on the commemorative marches taking place in Detroit, visit the following websites:
http://moratorium-mi.org/50th-
http://www.freedomwalkdetroit.
To hear the full story, click the audio above.
