Jewish activists recall their roles in ‘slowly breaking down’ civil rights barriers

50th Anniversary Commemorative Freedom Walk in Detroit last month. Photo: REUTERS

The March down Woodward Avenue in Detroit with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1963 drew an estimated 125,000 locals. 

 

Jerusalem Post - NEW YORK – It wasn’t quite as large, momentous or memorable as the March on Washington, but the March down Woodward Avenue in Detroit with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1963 drew estimated crowds of 125,000 locals.

Among those were Avern Cohn, Allen Zemmol and Irving Tukel of Detroit, all young lawyers at the time who were active supporters of King’s message.

Zemmol, 83, remembered the march as “jammed” with people.

“I don’t think there were more than four or five thousand white people there,” Tukel recalled of the march.

“We were just there to show solidarity.”

Cohn, who at the time was active the Detroit chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and is a United States District Judge for eastern Michigan, said he remembered Dr. King’s speech “was very stirring.”

“We were slowly breaking down barriers at the time,” Cohn said. “There was all sorts of Sturm and Drang in the South, and in Detroit there were all kinds of activity, and there was still substantial discrimination. Schools were still segregated.”   More   PTG