Event Description

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.[1]