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About The Freedom March

On June 23, 1963, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was in Detroit for the citys Great March to Freedom. The nations largest civil rights gathering up to that time, an estimated 125,000 people marched down Woodward Avenue to Jefferson Avenue, carrying placards and singing We Shall Overcome. Recalling recent attacks African Americans had suffered during similar protests in Alabama, Detroit police commissioner George Edwards reassured King that, Youll find no dogs and fire hoses here. The march ended at Cobo Hall where King introduced his I have a dream speech. Two months later, King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, and delivered a similar speech that became one of the greatest moments in American civil rights history.

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